Disaster
by Arcole
Summary: COMPLETE! Sequel to Damage and Dawn. Artemis Entreri is doing his best to create a new life with Dwahvel, but when Jarlaxle returns, will it all come apart? Yeah. It will. It's Jarlaxle. Of course it will.
1. Chapter 1

Disaster

Chapter 1

Artemis Entreri crouched by a small campfire, his eyes ever scanning the darkness around him. Apart from the watches, the rest of the caravan's guard was asleep. They'd reported a quiet trip from Mirabar, apart from a disturbing encounter with some newly arrived worshipers of Malar in Longsaddle.

While a few days out of Waterdeep, the caravan's exhausted guard had been more than ready for bolstering by the presence of the renowned swordmaster and his group as Entreri and four others had been sent by one of his wealthier and more nervous clients to insure that the caravan made the last leg of the journey safely.

Why the old man was so worried about the last portion of the journey was beyond Entreri, however. The miles closest to Waterdeep were the best patrolled by the City Guard and the safest. But old Torspur's money was good and made up for being away from home for a few days.

He considered the substantial irony in the thought that he first of all had a home to go to and secondly actually missed it when he was away. He'd spent the first forty years of his life without a home worth mentioning. He'd lived in a state of constant change, with little more than the clothes on his back and the sword and dagger at his hip as his only possessions.

Sitting by the campfire, those days came back to him vividly. But instead of freedom, he remembered only restlessness and dissatisfaction. Any person who was driven by motion and adventure simply hadn't found in himself what he needed, Entreri decided.

After forty years it was nice to have finally found enough peace inside himself that enabled Artemis Entreri to actually sit still.

A soft sound came to him across the campfire and he rose slowly, prodding the sleeping guard next to him with the toe of his boot.

Cullon woke instantly and quietly, his hand going reflexively to the sword at his side. He shot a questioning look at Entreri who simply gestured across the fire to the area where he'd heard the noise. Together they circled the sleeping group, unwilling to wake them unless necessary.

Once past the firelight, Entreri's eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness. Without hesitation he headed straight toward the wagon where Torspur's cargo was loaded. Sure enough, the canvas cover lay thrown back and two men busily yet quietly unloaded an unexceptional wooden crate.

Sending Cullon around to flank from the left, Entreri circled the pair from the other side. The two men silently—too silently—pried open the lid of the crate and Entreri realized they were dampening the noise by magical means.

Knowing that a globe of silence likely hung over the area made it that much easier for the former assassin to approach his target. Entreri glided like a ghost through the shadows cast by the wagon until he stood directly beside the thieves who only became aware of his presence when the silver tip of his blade between them caught their attention.

All noises of the night, from the sounds of the nearby forest to the sighs of the horses, had been completely shut off as Entreri got within twenty feet of the men. He didn't know how long the globe would hold out, but one look at the two before him told him that they were using some kind of artifact. That neither of the men was a wizard was evident from the way they wore their swords.

Cullon came forward bravely to stand opposite him, his blade also drawn and to Entreri's gratification not betraying a sign of the nervousness he felt certain the young man felt. Entreri motioned for the men to put down the box and step away. In the eerie complete silence they did so, then as one sprang back to draw their weapons.

Part of Entreri wished it wouldn't come to that. He hadn't killed anyone in a long time, and Cullon had never done more than wound a pirate or two. However, the steely looks darted at them by the thieves told him more certainly than their words would have that the two were prepared to kill them for whatever lay in Torspur's box.

The closest opponent to Entreri was also the biggest by several inches and several pounds, but he could tell from the smaller man's bearing and the way he held his sword that though smaller, he was the more dangerous of the two.

So Entreri deftly stepped onto and across the crate between them to engage the smaller man before Cullon could get in his path. His young student had improved greatly, but Entreri still was not certain he was ready for the kind of challenge his opponent offered.

Without the sound of metal against metal, the fight had an otherworldly, dreamlike quality. Moonlight glimmered on the blades and all was still around them, the rest of the camp having no idea there was anything going on at all.

It surprised him just how much he missed the sounds the swords made. He became aware of how much of his technique was rooted in hearing the unmistakable scrape of direction change and force as the blades rang against each other.

Without the noise, he instead concentrated on the vibration that ran up into his fingers, the shockwaves and tremors that translated into information in the palm of his hand. The darkness of the night impeded his vision somewhat as well, turning the confrontation into one of physical sensation as much as anything.

He kept his eye on Cullon to be certain he was not in trouble before proceeding to disarm his opponent. Unfortunately, the man was not content to be disarmed and pulled a short dagger out of his belt, continuing to thrust at him though clearly outmatched.

With a resigned sigh, Entreri pierced him in the shoulder, forcing him to drop the dagger as well. Then he held the tip of his rapier at the man's throat until he finally knelt in defeat. Entreri spared his life in order to question him later, and without realizing his good fortune, the man become one of the few to face the blade of Artemis Entreri and actually live to tell the tale.

Entreri took him out with a blow to the back of the head with the heavy hilt of his sword and prepared to watch Cullon's battle with the larger man.

The young lookout held his own well, Entreri was glad to see. He kept his guard tight and watched the other fighter for openings, taking advantage of them whenever possible to attempt a hit. Entreri could tell, however, that Cullon was not going for the kill.

That would be the death of him, he feared. Cullon would hold back against a dangerous opponent in an effort to spare his life, and his opponent would use that moment of mercy to slip inside his defenses.

Entreri knew he could take Cullon's side in this encounter and easily take out the big fighter, but held back. Unless Cullon appeared to be in mortal peril, this was his fight, his opportunity to defeat another man in combat. Entreri would be content to watch their silent ballet.

Once again, Cullon held his blade from a possible killing stroke to attempt a disarming. Once again, the big fighter opposite him pressed his advantage, this time pinking him in the upper arm. Perhaps it was the blood that began to flow, perhaps it was the fear that the wound would cause him to weaken, but at the next opportunity, Cullon did not pull back, but instead brought the point of his sword in under the man's defenses to pierce him cleanly just beneath the ribs.

Entreri watched the man fall to the ground, clutching his belly in silent agony. Cullon just stood there, bloody sword in hand, his chest rising and falling rapidly with the heaviness of his breath, but there was no sound.

Then the man's hand fluttered and his eyes rolled back into his head and he became completely still.

Cullon looked up at Entreri, his eyes full of questions. Entreri's dark eyes met his solemnly and he shook his head. In the silence of the moment, Entreri watched as a part of Cullon died as well, an innocence that he had not really noticed before.

As many men as he'd watched die in his life, as many men as he'd watched make their first kill, he'd not expected the feeling of sadness that came over him as Cullon gazed down at the dead man, a look of cool detachment coming over his features.

Sound began to come back over them as the spell wore off. To Entreri's surprise, the first sound he heard was the sound of his own sigh.

"I tried not to kill him," Cullon said at last when the noise of the world was back with them fully.

"Yes, but he tried to kill you," Entreri replied. "There's no dishonor in what you've done." Then they tied the hands of the smaller man and loaded his still unconscious form into the back of a wagon, along with that of his dead companion. None of the rest of the camp ever knew anything had happened.

"Who was he?" Cullon asked as Entreri went through the dead man's pockets for information.

"I don't know. But his companion here will. When we get to the city, I'm sure the Watch will be happy to find out just who they are and what they wanted with Mr. Torspur's cargo," Entreri answered.

Then he tossed Cullon a bag of coins and the dead man's sword and dagger. "That's all he's got of value," he explained. "Now it's yours."

"I don't want it," Cullon answered with distaste.

"Fine. Turn it in to the Watch when we get to the city," Entreri replied evenly. They went back to the fire where Cullon picked up his bedroll and prepared to travel again. "Day is still hours off. You might want to get a few more hours sleep," Entreri suggested.

"I'm not sleepy anymore," Cullon replied. "I'll stay up and keep a guard on the other man. They might not have been alone."

"You do that," Entreri answered, then sat down again by the fire, his back securely against a nearby rock.

Cullon took a few steps toward the prisoner, then stopped to look at his swordmaster. "What about you?" he asked. "Can you sleep?"

"I'll sleep in Waterdeep," Entreri stated. He too wanted to make certain no other thieves were tracking their progress and kept the wagon with Torspur's cargo within his line of sight at all times.

"Does it always bother you to kill a man?" Cullon's question hung in the darkness.

"Only once," came the quiet answer. Cullon looked at his teacher for a long moment, then walked away, his shoulders straight, but burdened.

Entreri glanced up at the young man's retreating form and heard himself sigh again. When had youth gotten to be so young? he wondered. When had he gotten to be so old? He'd traveled such a long road. When would it end? When would he be the one lying dead beneath a younger man's blade?

He sighed again and flexed the muscles of his shoulders and arms. Ever since his encounter with the shade in Damara, his speed and his strength had returned to that of a man ten years younger. Every time he caught a glimpse of the elusive gray tinge that lurked beneath his skin, he was reminded of Jarlaxle's predictions that he might age more like an elf than a human from that point.

The idea sickened him. He'd already lived longer than he'd thought he ever would as a boy in Memnon where only the very rich made it past forty. He'd lived longer than he thought he would as a young lieutenant in Calimshan where only the very skilled lived past thirty.

So much of the world wearied him these days. So many of the things considered valuable by those around him had already proven to be empty pursuits in his experience.

He thought of Jarlaxle then. How many centuries had he filled with acquisition and opportunity as answers to boredom and meaninglessness? How many conflicts had he manufactured just to fill up his time, to fill up the long centuries that lay before him?

Entreri sat by the fire and watched as Cullon stood over the dead man, the leather bag of coins in his hand. He watched as Cullon looked at the bag and finally pocketed it, and he felt old.

Then he ran his finger over the wide gold band that encircled his finger and he thought of the one who'd given it to him. It was not a wedding band, though he'd wondered sometimes if perhaps it truly had been such in all but name.

After all, he'd introduced her as his wife to everyone they met in Waterdeep. What else lay before them but to formalize their relationship as such? That odd priest of Lathander, Brother Ansel, had asked him if he was certain she was not his wife. He still wasn't sure.

But as he ran his fingertip across the band and thought of her, he knew what she was. She was the one thing he had in this life that he hadn't found empty. Her love for him was the one thing that gave his existence a dimension of meaning it had never had before.

And being apart from her was torture. More than anything at that moment, he wanted to be back with her in their little house in Waterdeep. He wanted to be back with his friend, his lover—his wife. It was only with the greatest of concentration that he stopped the ring from taking him there, from transporting him to its mate on Dwahvel's finger.

The ring had been expensive and its dimensional gate would only work once. Its magic was to be saved until that moment when it was absolutely necessary. At the moment when being safely by her side meant the difference between life and death. And homesickness was not fatal.

Even though at that moment, it certainly felt so.

Back in the little house in Waterdeep, Dwahvel woke to a sound in her kitchen. "Artemis?" she called sleepily. She was very glad he was home. The four days that he'd been gone to meet the caravan had gone very slowly and she missed him terribly.

"It'll only be a few days," he'd assured her when he left. "It wouldn't be good business to turn this one down."

"Then hurry back," she'd said to him, planting a very passionate kiss on his mouth to remind him of what he was leaving behind. If he was going to run off on her for several days, she at least wanted him to miss her while he was gone.

Now he was back, she sighed in relief. It had to be him. No one else would be able to get past the ridiculous number of devious traps and locks he'd set on all the doors and windows before leaving. He'd gotten much better—and she was glad of it—but he was still the most paranoid individual she'd ever met.

She rose from the bed and slipped into a warm robe against the cool night air and set out to find him. He never seemed to eat or sleep well on the road and always came in starved and exhausted.

The kitchen was dark as she entered and there was indeed a figure sitting at the wooden table of her kitchen. But from the glimmer of its red eyes, she knew it was not her Artemis. Behind that silent figure, another was busily picking through the cabinets.

"Make yourself at home, Jarlaxle," she said grimly, trimming the lamp.

"Oh, I will, I will, Mistress Tiggerwillies," the drow elf returned with a gallant bow to her. Then he turned back to the cabinets and continued to dig. "Do you have any cider to go with this cheese?" he asked.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The sun was just rising as Artemis Entreri unlocked and disabled the traps of the front door of his house. The house was not large as houses in Waterdeep's South Ward went, but it was by far the largest place he'd ever lived. And thanks to Dwahvel it was by far the most comfortable.

He walked quietly into the front hall so as not to disturb her sleep and headed to the back of the house for something to eat. He was starving.

As he opened the door, he saw them. There were drow elves in his kitchen.

Specifically there were two---Jarlaxle and his lieutenant Kimmuriel. Dwahvel sat on a kitchen stool, conversing politely with them. Several plates of crumbs let him know that Jarlaxle at least had raided his larder. Entreri didn't believe Kimmuriel actually ate.

At his glare, Jarlaxle stood and held out his hand to him in a gesture so very human and so very disconcerting in a drow. "Artemis!" he called. "Dear Mistress Tiggerwillies has been filling us in on your recent adventures in Waterdeep. The domestic bliss, the gainful employment and such. It sounds very ordinary."

He ignored Jarlaxle's outstretched hand and instead went to Dwahvel's side to be certain she had not been injured or inconvenienced by the unexpected guests. From the look in her eyes, he believed that she was politely holding back the storm of fury that threatened to rain down on all of them. He contented himself with giving her a kiss, ignoring Jarlaxle's little fond sigh.

"Aren't you two sweet?" the mercenary chief added sincerely to Kimmuriel's almost imperceptible snort of disgust.

Then Entreri turned to face the flamboyant drow. "What are you doing here, Jarlaxle?" he asked coldly.

"That's hardly a welcome for an old friend, Artemis! Think of all we've been through together."

"I have," Entreri returned straightforwardly. "What are you doing here?"

Jarlaxle gathered up his empty plates and placed them out of the way in the sink behind him. "I'll get to the dishes in moment, Mistress Tiggerwillies," he stated helpfully. Then he pulled a small bright green leather sack from his vest pocket.

He carefully tipped out the contents. Entreri watched as a pair of black stones fell onto the white tablecloth. They were so black they seemed to absorb the light around them.

"Shadow," Entreri breathed quietly. He felt Dwahvel stiffen in fear beside him. "Why do you bring these things into my house?"

"Do not worry, Artemis," Jarlaxle replied, but his voice held its own note of quiet awe. "You have protected this house very well. I know because it took all my efforts and those of Kimmuriel here to even find it, much less gain entrance."

Part of Entreri agreed with his assessment. After all, he'd spent easily three times the house's purchase price in hiring Captain Jarrol's new wizard Mellisandra as well as several more of Waterdeep's finest mages to render the house unscryable, insulated from magical intrusion, and safe from magical attack.

However, given Jarlaxle's appearance, it seemed that they owed him a substantial amount of refund money for their guarantee against psionic interference. He was disappointed that their efforts had been in vain, but not entirely surprised. These were, after all, dark elves he was dealing with.

But despite the money he'd spent to protect the house, he'd not had it rendered impervious to shadow. If he had, he might not have been able to enter it himself.

Even now as he looked at the stones, he could feel their pull and the answering echo inside him. He stepped forward almost without realizing it and reached out to take them in his hand. At their touch against his skin he could feel an icy wash of power run over him.

"What are they?" Jarlaxle asked in hushed tones of excitement. "We know they link to the plane of shadow because we took them off a recently dead shade. But what do they do?"

Entreri closed his eyes. The essence of shade that had been infused into him knew the incredible power of the stones, these little pieces of the shadow plane. With them, he could travel freely in shadow, could summon its denizens to do his bidding, could tap the magic of the Shadow Weave directly.

The essence of shade inside him resonated to the thrum and pull of the dark plane. Around him, the flicker of the kitchen lamp grew dim as darkness encroached and the shadows in the corners began to consume the room. All was moving toward shadow, he could feel it. The dark power drew him deeper and deeper into itself.

"Artemis!" Dwahvel's frightened voice cut through his reverie. He opened his eyes and looked down at his hand where it clenched the stones tightly. The gray tinge of shadow overlaid his skin as completely as on the day he'd first taken it into him through his vampiric blade.

He looked at her, her green eyes full of horror, and made his choice. He forced himself to drop the stones and took three steps back from them, each inch of distance reducing the pull of shadow on his soul until he could finally breathe again. Slowly the color of his skin returned to normal.

"You cannot use these, Jarlaxle," he finally managed to say. "Nor can Kimmuriel or anyone else in Bregan D'aerthe. All they'll be is a beacon to help the shadovar find you. I want them out of my house."

"But you can use them, Artemis," Jarlaxle began suggestively. "Perhaps they should stay with you. Perhaps you should study them."

"No," came the response. "I want nothing to do with the shadovar or with Bregan D'aerthe."

"But think of the opportunity you are passing up," Jarlaxle continued in a voice of enticement as he leaned across the table toward him. "The shadovar have come. There's no stopping that. The world is changing. All we can do is change with it, profit from it."

Entreri shook his head. "I have profit enough here in Waterdeep."

Jarlaxle looked over at Kimmuriel and gave a greatly exaggerated sigh then put the stones away. "Then our work here is done," he sighed melodramatically. "Though I don't suppose you'd mind an occasional visit, just for old times' sake."

Entreri just looked at him. Finally, he commented, "I hope the dwarf's absence means you killed him."

Jarlaxle merely laughed. "Not at all. Our good Athrogate is simply on an errand to the north. He's made a fine addition to Bregan D'aerthe. Our first dwarf member."

"I cannot imagine a member of Bregan D'aerthe who wasn't drow," Entreri commented dryly.

"Oh, but what about you?" the mercenary leader responded. "You were our first human member."

Kimmuriel practically glared at Jarlaxle.

"I never belonged to your little group," Entreri declared firmly. "Kimmuriel will vouch for that."

Despite the long-standing animosity between the two men, Kimmuriel nodded his head in agreement even as he took offense at Entreri's description of the group as 'little.'

"At any rate," Jarlaxle continued smoothly, "tell me of your life here in Waterdeep with the oh, so delightful Mistress Tiggerwillies."

Some perniciousness in Kimmuriel made him comment, "He keeps correcting you in his mind, Jarlaxle. The good halfling is apparently Mistress Entreri."

Jarlaxle eyed the golden ring on Entreri's finger, noting a mate on Dwahvel's. "So, you've entered into a state of marital bliss?" he cried joyously. "Allow me to felicitate you, Mistress Entreri." He offered her a deep bow.

Dwahvel wondered at Kimmuriel's words. They were not married, only posing as such. What was Artemis thinking? Then the sight of Jarlaxle's self-serving bow infuriated her.

She kept her peace but inwardly desired nothing more than to squeeze that annoying drow's windpipe until his eyeballs popped out of his shiny bald head. Kimmuriel snorted a little and she realized she'd probably broadcast that thought just a bit too loudly for the talented psion to ignore.

"Many thanks, Jarlaxle," she responded politely. "Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me, I'll leave you to catch up while I get dressed." Then with a polite nod to her guests, she left the room, her fingers clenching into fists despite herself.

She'd been in the bedroom only a short while when Artemis entered, his shoulders sagging in exhaustion.

"Are they gone?" she asked quietly.

"For now," came his reply as he cast himself across the bed with a groan.

"Is there any way to keep that meddling drow out of your life?" she couldn't help but ask.

"None that I am aware of," he answered, his voice muffled against the pillow he'd pulled under his cheek. "Mellisandra owes me a lot of money right now," he added grimly. "She and her fellows assured me that the house was protected against psionic power as well."

"Short of flooding the basement and asking an aboleth to move in, I suppose there's no way to ward off Kimmuriel's powers," Dwahvel retorted.

Artemis laughed a little at that, then agreed. "Too bad there's not a friendly illithid down the road we could call in for assistance."

"There's no such thing as a friendly illithid."

"Or a friendly drow."

"I don't like him, Artemis," Dwahvel said, coming to sit by him. "When I think of all the things he's put you through, I just want to strangle him."

"You wouldn't be the first," Artemis replied. "Don't worry about Jarlaxle. He'll be back when he's bored or when he wants something else, but I don't think he means us any harm."

Through the invisible portal Kimmuriel had cast into the bedroom, Jarlaxle listened and agreed. He truly didn't intend Artemis any harm. If the assassin wanted to play house a while with the charming little halfling, Jarlaxle could certainly be patient.

Sooner or later the game would pall and Artemis would be ready once again to rejoin Bregan D'aerthe, perhaps to put his new skills with the shadow stones to the test, perhaps to just add his blade to theirs.

"If you truly desire Entreri's assistance in our current project," Kimmuriel was saying, "we can perhaps sway him in another way. We do have the half-elf under our protection. He might be interested in her continued well-being."

Jarlaxle snorted at that himself. Protection was a very polite way of putting the relationship that had developed between Bregan D'aerthe and Lady Calihye. The poor thing had been nearly driven out of her mind before he'd stepped back into the picture and stopped their activities.

She still hadn't recovered enough from her recruitment to be very much use to them as a liaison between Bregan D'aerthe and the Citadel of Assassins. The mere sight of a drow male was enough to put her into palpitations, and she tended to have flashbacks and hallucinations at the most inopportune moments.

"I'm not sure Lady Calihye is very high on Artemis's list of priorities right now," Jarlaxle commented. "Let's just let her rest a while longer."

They observed a while longer as Artemis and Dwahvel talked, then moved from talking to touching.

"How . . . unusual," Kimmuriel commented distastefully after a bit.

"I think it's sweet," Jarlaxle replied. "I never dreamed Artemis could be so careful."

"What about the halfling then? She could certainly be leverage against his cooperation," his lieutenant offered helpfully.

"True," came the thoughtful reply. "We'll hold that in reserve as well. Meanwhile, we have pressing business to attend to in Luskan. I believe we owe the young crow another visit. Let us fan the flames a bit on his aspirations."

Gratefully, Kimmuriel closed the window into Entreri's house and turned his attention to Bregan D'aerthe's newest project in Luskan.

Unaware that they'd been watched and evaluated, Dwahvel lay back against the soft pillows of her bed and stroked Artemis's hair as he lay beside her, one arm cast heavily across her stomach.

He always came home from trips like this exhausted. She suspected he never let his guard down long enough to nap, much less to truly sleep while he was away. In fact, the only place she'd ever seen him fully relax was in this house, where he felt safe.

She sent another round of savage thoughts in Jarlaxle's direction. That wretched mercenary had found a way back into Artemis's life and, even worse, into his house. She wouldn't stand for that kind of intrusion again.

She'd known the unsleeping, ever-watchful assassin Artemis had been for years. But she'd grown used to the man who lay beside her now, the man who slept and dreamed, who was so comfortable in her bed that he didn't stir when she touched him.

She watched him slip deeper into sleep, the cares and the years falling away from him. He looked so young and his face had a smooth innocence she never saw when he was awake. In that quiet moment she could see the man he could have been if life had been kinder, if he had been kinder.

She could imagine the sound of his laugh set free from cynicism, the sound of his voice untouched by self-mockery. But she knew that was not to be.

Artemis Entreri had spent too many years in the dark to come out fully into the light. He'd done and seen too much evil for it to ever completely release his soul.

Perhaps that touch of shade that infused him was fitting, she thought with a resigned sigh.

Then she looked down again at the smooth curve of his face, the way his long, dark lashes lay against his cheek as quietly as a sleeping child's.

No, she thought, shadows might dwell inside him, but they did not own him.

She stroked his hair again, running her fingers into the smooth dark strands. He shifted a little, but didn't wake at her touch.

He had found a measure of peace and rest in her arms and in this house, and she was determined to defend it against anything the world or shadow or Jarlaxle or all the soldiers of Bregan D'aerthe could throw against it.

Then she kissed his forehead and rose to dress, leaving her Artemis to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Some months later, Dwahvel stood in a room full of giants.

Waterdeep was populated with them, as had been Calimport. She'd lived most of her life in a land where everything was too big and everyone was too tall. Looking around at the gathering of humans at Captain Jarrol's home, she was once again reminded that she was out of place in their world.

They were all huge. Although Artemis stood head and shoulders taller than she, these other humans made him look short in comparison. Though, she reminded herself, what Artemis lacked in height, he more than made up for in resolution and in skill. Many a very tall man lay dead in his wake for having underestimated him.

But that didn't change the fact that even Captain Jarrol's twelve year old son Emory looked down on her as they all headed in to the dinner table. With a sigh, she found herself a seat and subtly called upon the power of one of her favorite magical items, her amulet of accommodation, which immediately raised the height of the chair at least enough for her to comfortably eat her dinner with the rest of the group.

Ironically enough, back in her home village in Luiren she'd been much taller than the other girls. They'd picked at her unmercifully and accused her of being part orc. By the time she was seventeen, Dwahvel had known there was no place for her in Luiren.

So, she'd made her way to Calimport and joined the ranks of the expatriate halflings there. She'd learned to disguise herself, always as a human child, and to gather information. She'd learned to be harmless and charming. She'd learned to deflect suspicion from herself. She'd learned to listen and memorize, to watch and interpret.

Now, she sat at dinner at Artemis's side, and partially out of interest, but mostly out of habit she listened to the conversations going on around her.

"We must go to their aid, I say," declared one man down the length of the table. "It simply is not right to allow Luskan to be ruled by the likes of Arklem Geeth."

"I still say it's none of our business who rules Luskan," another retorted.

"But he's a lich," the first replied and Dwahvel recalled his name--Tolliver.

At her side Artemis shifted slightly. Of all the men at the table, she knew that he alone had been in close quarters with a lich. He alone knew what it meant to fight one—to defeat one.

"All of Waterdeep has thrown its support behind Lord Brambleberry and Captain Deudermont against the Hosttower," Tolliver continued in a strident voice. "We must stand ready to follow through with what is needed from us."

"Have you heard any current news of the expedition, Captain Jarrol?" came a request from one of the ladies at the table.

Jarrol gave a little glance to his wife beside him, then spoke up. "The news is that the battle against the Hosttower is going well, but that casualties are high among the civilians. Soon the winter will stop any flow of supplies into the port and the populace will be desperate for relief."

"We owe it to the good people of Luskan to help them fight against the evil that has gripped their city," Tolliver announced in a booming voice.

"I wonder if you can find any good people in Luskan," Artemis quietly remarked to Dwahvel.

"What's that, Entreri?" Tolliver gazed at him in suspicion.

Entreri slowly met his eyes, then said, "I merely wondered if you've ever been to Luskan, Tolliver."

The merchant stared back at him, his eyes beady in his puffy face. "No, Mr. Entreri, I have not. Perhaps you would fill us in on your own particular adventures in the city."

Out of all the men in the room, Tolliver was the one man he'd never worked with. The merchant simply could not afford Entreri's services.

However, out of deference to his other clients and to his host Captain Jarrol, Entreri reined in his irritation at the man's tone and stated, "I have been to Luskan over the years and with every visit I have found it to be a city of piracy and criminal activity. I sincerely doubt that Brambleberry and Deudermont will do anything to change that, no matter who runs the Hosttower."

"There must be some element of decency in Luskan," Tolliver retorted with a disbelieving laugh. "In every city there are some goodly folk, otherwise the entire structure would crumble in criminal anarchy."

Entreri just looked at him. He considered Calimport, Memnon, Menzoberranzan. No goodly core of people made certain law and order prevailed in those places. He considered Heliogabalus, whose paladin king and host of high-minded supporters barely managed to keep the Citadel of Assassins from running the place openly.

Tolliver went on to regale the others of the group with his vision of law and order in Luskan, but Entreri knew it to be a delusion. The city of Luskan would never be ruled by law and order, but only by the most opportunistic and most ruthless.

It was a waste of time to worry over it.

Then Captain Jarrol spoke up. "The Bonfire has been requested to serve as part of the relief flotilla that will be heading out in the spring. Does that mean you will not accompany us, Entreri? I had hoped to sign you on along with Mellisandra as protection for the ship."

Entreri looked down the table at the man who'd smoothed his entrance into Waterdeep. "Captain Jarrol," he said with a nod, "I would not dream of turning you down."

"So you do feel that the relief of Luskan is a priority," Tolliver assumed triumphantly.

"No, I do not," Entreri contradicted him firmly. "I believe it is a useless endeavor that will do no more than prolong the inevitable fall of Luskan into anarchy and pave the way for a new set of rulers just as evil and just as ruthless as the lich of the Hosttower."

"Then why go if you do not believe in the worth of the journey?" Tolliver responded in a scathing voice. "Have you no honor of your own to consider? Or are you simply a mercenary hired by whoever has the coin to pay you?"

All conversation stopped as the merchant's accusations hung in the air. Dwahvel held her breath. Men had died at his hand for far less.

However, her companion did not choose that route, not today. "My honor lies in keeping my word to Captain Jarrol that I will keep his cargo safe, whatever it is, wherever it goes," Entreri answered him, his voice quiet but with an icy resolution.

"And he will do that," came a crackly voice from the other end of the table. "He brought in two thieves with him on this last trip. One who turned in several of his fellows to the City Watch, and one who was dead." Torspur laughed, which turned into a cough, then added, "And my cargo made it to me safely."

The mood at the table turned even more somber with that revelation. Entreri ignored the stares and ate his dinner, unwilling to encourage more discussion of that nature. This was supposed to be a celebration.

The guild had experienced a very successful trading year, a success due in no small part to the activities of Artemis Entreri on their behalf. But Dwahvel knew he did not wish to call attention to himself or remind them of the cost of doing business with him.

At his side, she patted his knee then asked the lady beside her if she'd seen the latest arrivals in Mistress Wallingdam's jewelry cases. Soon, the other ladies had taken her cue and turned the conversation to less controversial and less bloody topics.

Entreri was silent through the rest of the meal, his mind on Tolliver's words. Had he exchanged one type of mercenary life for another? Was he simply a sword for hire to these guildsmen?

What was the difference in protecting Jarrol's cargo to Luskan and retrieving a stolen gem for Pasha Pook? In both cases, he was simply watching over another man's possessions.

Then he looked down the table at the men he'd chosen to work for. They were all honorable, all above-board in their dealings. These were not men who sought to make unfair profit off others. They were not men who took without recompense.

He'd never worked for Tolliver. He'd always been careful to estimate his services at more than the man could afford to pay him. So far, Dwahvel's network of sources had not let him down. Tolliver had never gotten wind that Entreri was carefully pricing himself out of his range.

He did not wish to make an enemy of the man purely as a matter of convenience, but he would not work for him. Tolliver was sloppy and secretive, an infernal combination in Entreri's book.

Then he looked down at old Torspur, aware that he'd done his last job for him as well. The old man had known there would be an attempt on the cargo outside the city, but other than hiring him to guard it, had not given him the information he should have received in order to do his job.

Entreri didn't care what had been in the box. He didn't care who wanted it. But he did care that the men sent to retrieve it had some magical backup at their disposal.

Caravans were routinely shielded from magical attacks, but this crew had found a loophole in using a non-threatening little cantrip. Someone had worked long and hard to exploit this weakness, and the ploy had almost worked.

In Calimport where a job was frequently a test or an ambush, he'd not have expected any more from his employer. He would have expected a ruse within a ruse and knew that no one he dealt with was telling him any more than absolutely necessary. If circumstances dictated, he would be just as prepared to kill his employer and take whatever he was guarding for himself.

But these days he lacked the patience for this sort of game. His time was too valuable to concern himself with the petty machinations and power plays of the insecure. Anything worth doing was worth doing openly, without apology, without hesitation.

He glanced down the table at Torspur again, disappointment coloring his thoughts. For Torspur, the price for Entreri's services had just gone to unpayable.

As they sat around in the salon after dinner in polite conversation groups, Entreri stood back on his own as Dwahvel worked the room with her customary blend of charm and artlessness. He knew she would come back with information ranging from upcoming trade agreements to upcoming grandchildren.

Captain Jarrol's oldest son, Emory, spoke briefly to his father, who then pointed across the room at the swordsmaster. The boy gave his father a respectful bow, then proceeded to approach Entreri.

"Sir," the boy began, "I am to sail with you in the spring as cabin boy. My father said I was to introduce myself to you. I hoped you might be free to take me on as a student."

Entreri looked at the boy, taking his measure quickly. He was not so small that he couldn't wield a sword, nor so overgrown that his clumsiness would present a hazard. However, he'd not taken on a student this young. "Why do you wish to learn the blade?" he asked him directly.

"I plan to go to sea with my father, sir, and I do not want to meet pirates unprepared," came the boy's quick answer.

Emory's reply was satisfactory and the swordmaster made arrangements to work with him. "But understand this, boy," Entreri warned. "You will do as I say, when I say. You will not question me or I will not teach you."

The boy agreed solemnly and stuck out his hand to seal the bargain. The gesture was so commonplace, but so unexpected. No man ventured to shake hands with Artemis Entreri. It was something instinctual inside those he met. They knew without knowing that he would not take their hand in friendship, nor in agreement.

Only Jarlaxle had the audacity to expect a handshake from him, an audacity that was not rewarded as he ignored his request as well.

But Emory was too young to know what he was doing. He was not yet wise enough in the ways of the world to understand that his position in the hierarchy was not nearly high enough to call for that kind of courtesy from Artemis Entreri.

Perhaps it was that earnestness, that innocence, that weakened his resolve, that caused Entreri to gravely shake the boy's hand.

From across the room, Dwahvel watched the interchange with interest. And over the next weeks she watched the lessons unfold. Where most of his students left with various cuts, scrapes, and bruises each day, Emory left exhausted but otherwise unharmed.

"Why do you pull back with him?" she asked after the fourth lesson.

"I don't pull back with him," he replied defensively and the tone of his voice told her all she needed to know. Artemis was not aware that he was pulling back. He was being kind without realizing it. Dwahvel was quite frankly astonished.

Then Artemis looked at her as he wiped his hand across his forehead. "Am I pulling back?" he asked.

Dwahvel did not know what to say. She did not want to disturb the growth of the tender plant before her—the flower of affection for another person that was apparently growing inside him. However, she'd brought it up and now she had to answer for her comments.

"No, of course not," she said breezily, "you are as hard on him as he needs you to be, no more, no less."

Artemis looked at her for a long moment, then went to take a drink of water from the pitcher she kept filled for his students.

"Manfred Jarrol is a valued business associate," he stated at last. "It would not be good business for me to carve his son up like a roasting bird."

"No, of course not."

There was another long pause. Then the bell rang to admit another student for his lesson. This one bore a black eye and several half healed scratches on his neck and arms.

Entreri realized in that moment that he was too hard on the young men who studied with him. He punished them relentlessly until they either dropped off his roll or proved their willingness to do whatever it took to learn from him.

Those that stayed became swordsmen. Cullon and Ballantin had become nearly proficient under his tutelage—and Cullon had proven himself in mortal combat. Though he was never going to be a master, he was solid and reliable in combat and would continue to improve with time. Entreri did not mind fighting beside him.

That realization alone was enough to surprise him afresh.

Artemis Entreri fought alone.

Then he recalled some of the most amazing feats of swordsmanship he'd ever been party to. Each time it had been with another master at his back—Jarlaxle, Do'Urden, even Danica Bonaduce.

The young man came forward, his eyes resolute but with a touch of anxiety. He was improving. He hadn't begged for his life in several weeks. Perhaps it was time to move him to the next level of instruction.

"Anders, I'm going to show you something new today," Entreri began, noting how quickly the young man suppressed the flinch he'd felt. New always equaled painful in Entreri's studio.

But on this day, Anders would leave with a sense of accomplishment rather than additional injuries.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

In the dead of night, Entreri woke to a magical buzz that could only mean one thing.

Drow.

He wasn't sure exactly how Dwahvel had done it, but she'd somehow managed to find a wizard capable of creating an early warning system that Kimmuriel was forming a dimensional window inside the house. And now every hair on his body was giving him the signal that they were about to be invaded.

He sat up in the bed as Dwahvel rolled over, groaning, "What time is it?"

"Time to rise and shine," came Jarlaxle's voice from the foot of the bed. But his voice had a strained quality to it, and at his side Kimmuriel practically quivered with anxiety.

"Catch," Jarlaxle called. Then a small bright green leather bag sailed through the air directly toward Entreri. Before he could catch it, the dimensional gate and the two drow were gone.

"That son of a bitch," Entreri cried angrily as the shadow stones landed in the palm of his hand, magic pouring off them in the ominous rising hum of a spell building to overload. But within seconds the hum began to mellow to a contented purr, then to silence.

"What was that?" Dwahvel asked, rubbing her eyes.

"A little surprise from Jarlaxle," Entreri snarled. He held the stones in his hand for a few minutes, his eyes half-closed in a sort of communion with them.

Then he looked at Dwahvel, who simply sat watching and waiting. "They'll be back," Entreri declared as he opened the chest at the foot of his bed and removed a certain jeweled dagger. Then he closed his eyes again and Dwahvel heard the stones in his hand begin to hum in anticipation.

After a moment, he looked up at her, an evil grin on his face. "Jarlaxle will be far too curious as to the results of his gambit not to return. They'll be back and we'll be ready."

"Ready, how?" Dwahvel asked, a little glimmer in her eyes.

Several minutes later, the warning system buzzed again, but this time Dwahvel was ready. As she'd hoped, the two drow materialized in the same location, just in range of the basin of cold water she cast right at their heads.

"Catch," Entreri called lazily from the side and was delighted to see both dark elves duck reflexively, their clothes dripping wet. Kimmuriel's hair clung damply to his head in a fashion both comical and pitiful to behold.

It had been a nice prank, Entreri decided. Anything more dangerous or more magical would have been met with instinctual retaliation. The last thing he wanted was to have his bedroom blasted apart by one of Jarlaxle's many self-defense mechanisms.

Meanwhile, the mercenary had already pulled a wand from his vest and dried himself. With a great show of effort, he even dried the carpet where they stood.

Kimmuriel had driven the water away from his clothing and hair, but he'd not had a mirror on hand, and to Dwahvel's delight his hair had gone all frizzy.

"That," Jarlaxle said sternly, "was not nice, Artemis. Nor ladylike, Mistress Entreri."

"Nor was throwing a dangerous magical artifact at us in the middle of the night," Entreri snapped. "Not nice at all, Jarlaxle."

"But, Artemis," Jarlaxle began in his most wheedling tone, "we knew the stones wouldn't hurt you. They like you. You're one of them."

"Let me guess," Entreri responded evenly, "they don't like you because you've been experimenting with them when I warned you they would do you no good."

Jarlaxle's smile and shrug told him all he needed to know. "But that's beside the point," the drow said easily. "We were actually on our way to see you anyway about a little matter of business."

"Can't it wait until morning?" Entreri responded with a nonchalant yawn.

"Day and night mean nothing in the Underdark, you know," Jarlaxle explained breezily as he headed down the stairs. "I had no idea what time it was."

Then the drow leader headed downstairs, walked boldly into the kitchen, and began to dig around in the cabinets.

"What have you got to eat in here, Mistress Entreri?" he asked. "I've been living off mushrooms and rothe so long my stomach thinks my throat has moved to Ched Nasad."

"Here, Jarlaxle," Dwahvel began in her sweetest voice. "I've made a spice cake just for you."

Jarlaxle eyed the cake suspiciously, switching his eye patch momentarily from one eye to the other, then to the center before putting it back again. Dwahvel cut three large pieces and passed them out to the three men at her table.

Without hesitation, Entreri dug into his piece of cake, entertained by the way the other two waited for him to begin before starting their own.

Moments later, Jarlaxle put down his fork with a contented sigh and exclaimed, "That was by far the most delicious thing I have eaten since being forced to leave Piter's bakery behind in Heliogabalus. My congratulations, Artemis, on securing such a wonderful cook for yourself."

Dwahvel noted with a degree of professional satisfaction that even Kimmuriel had destroyed his piece of cake and was at that moment picking up the crumbs from his plate with the tip of his finger. He glanced up just as he stuck his fingertip in his mouth and she couldn't resist giving him a very saucy wink. She could have sworn at that moment that he blushed.

"Now to business," Jarlaxle announced, and with a flourish brought out a map of the Sword Coast. "We need to stop the spring caravan to Luskan, Artemis, and you, being a professional caravan security specialist, were the first person who came to mind to consult."

"Like you said, I specialize in security. What makes you think I'll tell you how to stop a caravan?" Entreri asked calmly, but seriously.

"I'll pay more than they will of course," Jarlaxle responded evenly. "Now, we don't really care about raiding the caravan. We just mainly want to be sure it never arrives."

"I won't help you, Jarlaxle," Entreri responded firmly. "I make my living ensuring the safety of these goods. I'm not about to help you destroy them."

"It's just food and supplies, nothing truly valuable," Jarlaxle explained.

"No," Entreri responded and the two men locked stares, bright red eyes to dark gray.

After a moment, Jarlaxle sighed. "Well, if you've made up your mind, Artemis," he began in cool sarcasm, "I suppose our meeting is over." Jarlaxle made a very theatric show of folding the map. Then he glanced over at Kimmuriel who lifted an eyebrow as if to say 'why not give it a try.'

"Would it help to mention that an old acquaintance of yours from Damara is in our employ?" Jarlaxle began.

After a short pause, Entreri caught onto his meaning. Calihye. "Jarlaxle, our lives diverged the minute she tried to kill me. Her path is her own to make," he stated firmly, though he couldn't help but pity her in the hands of Bregan D'aerthe. She'd have been better off with him.

Then Kimmuriel addressed Dwahvel directly. "You might wish to keep your cooking skills very sharp," he began. "Entreri tossed the last woman who displeased him through a window."

That was it, Entreri decided. They could come into his house uninvited, they could throw dangerous items at him in his sleep, but there was no way he was going to tolerate them speaking disrespectfully to his wife.

"Out. Now," Entreri demanded as he rose to his feet. "Do not come back without an engraved invitation."

"No, no," Jarlaxle began in a soothing tone, "Artemis, let's not part on such terms. Kimmuriel, apologize."

The psionicist just glared at his leader in horror. "What? To the halfling?"

Without warning Kimmuriel felt an uncomfortable sensation in the side of his neck, a sharp little pain and then the sensation of his life being drawn away from him. He tried to marshal his mind against it, but that drain came again. It felt as if it were taking the tiniest piece of his soul away. He'd never felt so helpless.

But despite the panic, the reasonable part inside him wondered how the assassin crossed the room so quickly.

"Apologize," a voice hissed in his ear, then Entreri gave the knife point a little nudge, taking yet another drop of his very essence with it.

"My deepest apologies, Entreri," Kimmuriel stammered.

"No, to her," the voice demanded.

"My deepest apologies, Mistress Entreri. I spoke out of turn," Kimmuriel managed to say. Then the pressure on his neck went away and he looked up to see Entreri step out of the shadows across from him. Dwahvel and Jarlaxle looked appropriately surprised as well.

"Artemis, I am impressed," Jarlaxle finally stated. "I was not aware you possessed these abilities."

"You gave them to me," Entreri commented lightly, revealing the bag of stones in his hand. "Do remember this, Jarlaxle. I can come to you anywhere that shadow touches light. And where there is light, there is always shadow. So when I say wait for an engraved invitation before coming into my house, know that I am more than capable of finding you in order to deliver it."

Kimmuriel shot a glance at his chief, who looked back at him and arched an eyebrow.

Then without warning, Entreri disappeared from his place and stepped out of the narrow shadow of a kitchen stool beside Dwahvel. He grabbed her by the hair, tangling his fingers in her curls right up next to her scalp, and placed the tip of his dagger at her throat. To her credit, she only blinked once in surprise.

"And she is no pawn between us. I would kill her myself before she fell into your hands," Entreri stated, his voice deadly calm.

Jarlaxle looked at him, first in anger, then in understanding, then in wistfulness. "No, of course not, Artemis. I would never harm a hair of her head, you know that," he said sadly. "We will, of course, respect your privacy. And do be certain to drop by the invitation sometime. You are a valued colleague and a trusted friend."

"But not a brother," Entreri replied with a note of dry humor in his voice.

"Certainly not. I trust you far more than I'd ever trust a brother," Jarlaxle laughed. "Kimmuriel, we have business to attend to, I believe," he stated to his lieutenant, who still rubbed absently at the cut on his neck.

"Oh, and Artemis," Jarlaxle added as he turned to depart. "If you mean to keep your clients' cargo safe in the spring, have them avoid the route to Luskan past Neverwinter. Even without your assistance, I feel certain that it is extremely unlikely any goods will make it that far this year. Too many bandits on the road."

"And by sea?" Dwahvel asked, her voice nervous even though Entreri had removed the point of his blade and rubbed his fingers gently now through her hair.

"Yes, avoid that as well. Very dangerous this time of year," Jarlaxle stated nonchalantly. "Pirates and such."

Then with yet another of his so-gallant bows, Jarlaxle stepped to Kimmuriel's side and the two disappeared. Entreri closed his eyes for a moment, then called out, "And no spying, Jarlaxle."

Dwahvel could have sworn she heard a snort of disgust at that.

Artemis then stepped away from her and dropped to one knee to look her in the eyes. "I didn't hurt you, did I?" he asked. "Or frighten you?"

She remembered the eerie way he'd slipped in and out of the shadows of the room. She recalled that moment of shock when his hand grabbed her hair and the tip of his blade hovered at her throat.

"No, Artemis. You didn't hurt me. Or frighten me. I trust you," she said, and it was the truth.

"I love you, Dwahvel," he stated firmly, his dark eyes never leaving hers. "I love you and I would never hurt you."

"I know. But if you ever need to kill me, I understand," she replied, and there was no joke in her voice.

The next morning well before dawn, he pulled her out of bed despite her protestations. "Get up and get dressed," he instructed in his typically highhanded fashion. Then he actually went to her closet and pulled out a pair of dresses, decided between the two, tossed his choice across her, and hung the other in the closet again.

Soon, he'd stirred her out of bed and into the washroom to wash her face and fix her hair. Through the delirium of drowsiness she noticed that he'd put a great deal of effort into himself that morning. He was cleanshaven, his dark hair pulled back smoothly at the nape of his neck, and he wore his nicest suit of clothing, the one he reserved for dinners with his most wealthy clients. So, she followed his lead and dressed with care—or at least as much care as she could manage given the way he rushed her.

They were out the door and into a waiting carriage before she knew it. The winter air was very cool, but not unbearably so. He pulled her next to him so that he could wrap his cloak around her as they rode through the darkened streets. To Dwahvel's surprise, the carriage stopped at the little amphitheater where they'd encountered the priest of Deneir and his wife.

However, the amphitheater was empty today save for the silver haired priest of Lathander, Brother Ansel.

"You are just in time, Artemis," the old priest called. "The sun will rise in only a few moments. Come, Mistress Tiggerwillies, sit and watch the start of the new day."

As the first glimmers of rosy light appeared in the sky, the priest began a song to the morning. As before, she found herself moved to tears by its beauty, its potential. But today there was a note of sadness in it as well, a tone of regret that for some the new day held loss and misery rather than joy.

But just as her heart seemed it would break with the sorrow in his voice, he included the couple in his glance as he continued to sing and a brighter note broke through. Despite the sadness, despite the pain, there was love and there was hope.

The song pulled Dwahvel along into this new day, this new place, with reassurance that all could be well if she only looked to hope. The sun was rising, noon was coming, light would pour over the earth and nothing would be hidden from its glow.

She had no idea how much time passed as she listened, and it was with surprise and disappointment that she realized Brother Ansel's voice had gone silent and that he stood there watching them with a smile on his face. Slowly she became aware of sunlight and birdsong, and despite the coolness of the day, she was warm beneath Artemis's arm.

"Are we ready to begin?" Brother Ansel asked in a kindly voice.

"Yes," came the response from the man beside her.

"Begin what?" Dwahvel asked quietly.

"The wedding."

Dwahvel could only look at him. Then she asked, "We're getting married? Now?"

"Yes."

"No, we aren't," she responded firmly. Artemis stiffened at her side and looked down at her, with a stunned expression on his face. She'd never seen him at such a loss. She made a note to always remember that she had that power over him and to only use it for good.

"Why not?" he finally managed to ask.

"Because you have not asked me to marry you."

A smile broke over his face like the dawn of the rising sun. It was beautiful to see. Then he knelt before her, took both her hands in his and asked.

She knew better than to say no. He wasn't the type to take no for an answer.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

As they rode back home after the ceremony, she had asked him why the sudden interest in formalizing their relationship.

"It was time," he had responded.

She'd given him a knowing smile and didn't press him for more. He was grateful because at that moment he had no other answer.

She'd been his wife in his mind ever since he'd claimed her as such aboard Captain Jarrol's ship and he'd been satisfied by that. However, after Jarlaxle and Kimmuriel's visit, his satisfaction had vanished.

Once the two drow vacated his house, he'd lay back down with her and tried to sleep. Shortly after sunrise, he'd given up sleeping and gone out alone, his steps taking him to the amphitheater.

By the time he reached it, he'd known what he was going there for. He was going to find Brother Ansel, the priest of Lathander, who already seemed to know his heart where Dwahvel was concerned.

The sun was well into the sky and he expected the priest to have already gone back to the main temple uptown. However, Brother Ansel sat on one of the semicircular benches as if waiting for someone.

At his approach, the silverhaired priest looked up at him, a smile crossing his face. "Artemis," he called in surprise. "How nice to see you this beautiful morning. I hope your lady is doing well."

From there, Entreri wasn't precisely sure how it happened, but before he'd left the amphitheater, it had been arranged to meet at sunrise the next day for the ceremony.

He'd been so consumed with the how of it that he never considered the why.

Looking back, however, he could recall the moment when it became necessary to make Dwahvel his wife in every way.

Hearing Jarlaxle call her Mistress Entreri had not been an issue for him. He'd heard his old companion refer to himself as Drizzt Do'Urden and Entreri as Wulfgar on too many occasions to ever ascribe too much meaning to a name with that one.

But when Kimmuriel called her Mistress Entreri, it had just rubbed him the wrong way. The psionicist would know the truth of what he said directly from their own minds and reactions. Kimmuriel would know it was a lie.

Entreri did not care what Kimmuriel thought, but Dwahvel deserved better than that.

He would not have her living a lie. She deserved truth.

And so he made the truth of his heart open to the world. He'd made his heart public, his love for her recorded faithfully by Brother Ansel in the records of the temple of Lathander.

And in most ways, nothing had changed between them. He did not love her any more after the ceremony than before. She'd been his wife in his mind for months. Putting it on paper did not make it any more true to him.

On the other hand, there were little nuances of behavior and meaning that had indeed shifted. Something about the way they were together had deepened. A level of hesitation he hadn't even been aware of had disappeared.

He slept at night more deeply than he'd ever slept before. Each morning when he woke, he felt rested, amazed by what he'd missed during all those years of wakefulness and caution.

He ate better than he'd ever eaten before. In fact, he'd had to become very careful at the table because she loved to feed him and fed him well. In all his life, meals had been inconveniences at best, dangerous distractions at worst. Now they were relaxed times of conversation as he told her about his students, about the plans for the upcoming flotilla to Luskan.

That had been a sore point between them, he had to admit. Every since Jarlaxle's warning, she'd repeatedly pressed him to stay behind in Waterdeep. She was afraid for him, he knew it. She did not mean to cast aspersions on his ability to take care of himself and of the ship and crew in his trust.

But all the same, he'd finally lost his temper with her over the issue and forbade her to bring it up again, and she hadn't. But she was still angry with him about leaving and he with her for failing to understand.

As the day of his departure grew nearer, however, their mutual anger had transformed into a sad resignation on her part and an undercurrent of guilt on his.

He didn't want to hurt her by leaving. He didn't want to put himself unnecessarily in danger. But she had to understand that he'd agreed to go. If Captain Jarrol was making the trip, he would be there as he said he would.

That hadn't stopped him from speaking privately with Jarrol about his misgivings about the trip. He'd even suggested that Jarrol leave Emory behind.

However, Jarrol and the rest of the fleet captains were convinced that with all the pirates of Luskan deeply embroiled in their own internal concerns, such a large, well-defended fleet had nothing to fear.

All the same, Entreri set extra security and defensive mechanisms in place, thoroughly annoying their new wizard Mellisandra.

Mellisandra Deneviere had a beautiful name, but was a singularly unattractive woman in Entreri's opinion. She was the same height as he, but outweighed him by a good forty pounds, all shoulder and bust. Her blond hair was fine and straight and by mid-afternoon tended to stick to her head as if glued there. Her features seemed too small for her broad face, and her voice tended toward the strident end of the vocal range.

However, he could not deny that she was a very competent wizard and that the extra enchantments he'd had her place on the ship seemed effective. Getting her to actually expend the energy to cast the enchantments had been another story. Though gifted in many ways, she was lazy and second guessed him at every opportunity.

One thing he sorely missed of his earlier existence was the permission he'd given himself to just slay anyone who would not obey his orders instantly. Mellisandra Deneviere truly had no idea how often he had spared her life when every instinct cried out for her immediate termination.

At last, the winter weather began to break and the first warmth of springtime flushed the air. Captain Jarrol came from a captain's meeting with a date of departure in hand, and the ships were provisioned and loaded.

Bonfire would be carrying a load of grain heavy enough to make her ride low in the water. Entreri had instructed Mellisandra to cast extra charms for water resistance to the cargo and to add to her reinforcement of the hull of the ship.

"Why do we need to reinforce the hull any more, Entreri?" she'd asked in a petulant tone. "I've already strengthened it by twice. It's not like pirates come up underneath to siphon the cargo out a hole in the boat."

"Just do it, Mellisandra," Entreri instructed her for the fifth time. A serious part of him wished they could leave her behind and trust his newfound powers with the shadow stones as their magical reinforcement.

The stones had been an unwelcome addition to his arsenal. He'd have much rather thrown them back at Jarlaxle. But within moments of his first examination of them, he'd come to realize that in his presence they were quiet, practically dormant unless called upon.

Over the next few weeks, he experimented with them himself, taking short journeys in the shadowplane, marveling at the speed of these journeys compared to distance covered on the material plane.

He also toyed with the Shadow Weave, but his magical education was limited to the use of artifacts and he knew it would take considerable practice to be able to use the stones in any truly effective fashion.

And despite his practice in tapping the energy of the Shadow Weave, using the stones in any but the most rudimentary way took concentration. If they indeed faced pirates, he'd be lost to the battle itself as a fighter in order to cast with the stones. Despite the improvement of Cullon and Ballantin, too many of the sailors on board were merchant sailors, not warriors, and his blades would be missed too badly in a fight to risk it.

Therefore, Mellisandra had been enlisted to make the trip. Most of the ships could not afford to employ wizards, and indeed Entreri knew it strained Captain Jarrol's purse to do so. However, Jarlaxle's casual warning triggered a continual nagging feeling in the back of his mind that this trip would indeed be eventful, and he pressed Jarrol until he agreed to bring her on.

But despite all his precautions, he could not rest easy about the trip or about leaving Dwahvel. Deep inside, he knew she was right to be afraid.

The night before the flotilla cast off from Waterdeep, he had a nightmare. Nightmares weren't part of his psyche. They never had been. But this night he dreamed about dragons.

Not the copper dragon sisters of Damara, though in their draconic forms they were indeed terrifying. He dreamed instead of the red dragon Hephaestus, flying low over the city, his blast of flame incinerating everything in sight. Smoke rose from the city and people ran in panic. His house was blasted apart before his eyes. He dug through the rubble desperately, but he couldn't find Dwahvel anywhere.

Then the dream shifted and he was being crushed in the jaws of Urshula the black dracolich as Jarlaxle faded into the wall behind him with an apologetic shrug. He could smell the stench of death as it rolled off the dragon; he could feel the burn of the acid consuming his flesh even as the lich's teeth tore at him.

The dreams were vivid and all encompassing, so much so that when Dwahvel woke beside him and placed her hand on his arm, he reacted violently, rolling onto her defensively and trapping her wrist in a painfully tight grip.

Within a breath he'd woken up enough to realize what he'd done and let go of her, apologizing repeatedly, but the look of sudden terror in her eyes bothered him badly. He'd hurt her. He'd forgotten where he was, and he'd hurt her.

Dwahvel watched as her husband pushed himself off her, his breath quickly slowing to normal. Her fear had been real. That moment of instinct that took over in him had been as ruthless and lethal as any action he'd ever taken. It frightened her to remember who she slept with.

But as quickly as his instincts had protected him, his love had protected her. "I'm so sorry," he repeated over and over like a mantra against the realization that he could have quite easily broken her arm—or her neck.

"I'm fine," she assured him as she sat up next to him and looked into his eyes.

She remembered the first time she'd gotten up the nerve to look Artemis Entreri in the eyes. She been struck by the emptiness in them, by their hard, pitiless gaze.

Now those same dark eyes looked into hers and all she could see in them was love and concern and regret. Artemis Entreri was sorry for something he'd done.

She reached out to brush back the dark hair that fell into his face, and he caught her hand gently, pressing her palm into his lips. In that moment, she understood anew the gift she'd been given when the gods had brought Artemis Entreri back into her life.

And she understood the challenge before her. Even though the blade was sheathed, it was still a sword. As loving and as gentle as he might be with her, her Artemis was still a warrior. She could not love that out of him nor would she want to.

And the one thing she knew was that she loved him. She loved everything he was, everything he was trying to be, even everything he had been as long as it brought him to be there at her side.

But she could not keep him there, and the knowledge that he was leaving broke something loose inside her. She could not keep him, but she could have him now.

He might leave her tomorrow, but tonight he was hers. He was her friend, he was her lover, he was her husband. And if he didn't come back to her, she wanted to always remember that she'd had him once.

Deliberately, almost ritualistically, she pushed him back onto the bed. She looked into his eyes, those dark beautiful eyes. She ran her fingertip across the arch of his eyebrows and down the elegant line of his cheekbones. She ran her fingers through his straight dark hair and along the edge of his jaw.

Then she ran her hands boldly over his body, her eyes devouring him, memorizing every line of muscle, every inch of skin. She closed her eyes and buried her face in his neck, breathing in the smell of him. She leaned over him, kissing his mouth, his neck, his shoulder, exulting in the taste of him.

He ran his hands across her shoulders and down her back, and his touch ignited her. Soon, he'd rolled her over beneath him, his hands caressing, insistent. But she didn't want his tender, generous touch. She wanted him. She wanted him with her, inside her, completely given to her. She wanted a piece of him left behind with her, something he couldn't take back.

This time was not about patience or enjoyment. This time was about the dark side of love, the side that knows loss and fear.

Her wrist ached as she pulled at him, but she didn't care. She knew that his fingers had left their imprint on her skin and she took savage joy in it. Those prints were evidence, proof that he'd been there with her, even if that proof was painful.

She dragged him close to her, as close as he could get, her desire fueling his into an uncontrollable inferno of passion.

He tried to pull back, to be careful—but she wouldn't let him be gentle. She wanted it to hurt.

She tugged at his hair. She left long scratches down his sides.

She knew she would feel the aftereffects for days to come, but she welcomed it. She wanted her body to ache and remember his touch. More evidence that he'd been there with her, that he'd been her friend, her lover, her husband.

When he finally shuddered and cried out then sank against her, falling to her side so as not to crush her beneath him, every part of her hurt. But the tears that escaped her eyes were tears of grief.

He lay there beside her quietly, so quiet she couldn't even hear him breathe. His fingers traced little circles and patterns on her shoulder.

She had to let him go, she knew that. He had to do this for himself, for the man he was becoming. To do otherwise was to go against his identity, an identity he'd fought hard to uncover.

She couldn't go with him, she knew that. He needed her safe at home to come back to. He'd never had a home before this. He'd never had a person in his life to be a constant anchor against life and change and trial. She had to be the one he fought for or he would not fight. She had to be there waiting for him or he would not go.

And he had to go. And he had to fight. It was who he was.

She'd come to realize that above all, Artemis Entreri was a man of integrity. His outward actions matched his inward motivations perfectly. There was no pretense in him, no show put on to fool anyone.

That was what made him a such a deadly assassin. His inner desire to kill those unworthy of life were in direct correlation to his actions in doing such. There was no conflict between what he really wanted and what he did. In serving the pashas as a tool for murder, he was directly serving his own demons of pain and vengeance.

But even then he had his code. He was a professional. In his world, he only killed those who deserved to die—either because they were too sloppy, too stupid, too dangerous, or just too inconvenient to live.

He never killed for pleasure, but more as a way to clean up the world of those who had no reason to exist in it any longer.

Over the past few years, he had changed.

But he still had no patience with those who put on a show. Even Jarlaxle with his grandstanding behavior and propensity for lies was always consistent in his desire to exploit the world and everyone in it to the entertainment and profit of Jarlaxle and Bregan D'aerthe.

And though Artemis was no longer willing to serve as Jarlaxle's entertainment or to fatten the coffers of Bregan D'aerthe, he understood the mercenary's motivations. Because they were consistent with his actions, Artemis respected them.

The merchant Tolliver on the other hand put on a front that his goals were profit for himself and the strength of the guild, but Dwahvel had discovered that a good portion of his business operated outside guild oversight, in fact serving another guild secretly. Tolliver was playing both ends against the middle to the detriment of the health of the guild he supposedly supported.

Artemis would not work with him. He had no respect for those who said one thing and did another. His deeply held hatred for priests came right out of that recognition of hypocrisy.

Brother Ansel, to her surprise, had made a tentative place for himself in Artemis's life by the virtue that so far, his actions and his calling had seemed to match. However, at the first sign that the priest's devotion and actions failed to support each other, Dwahvel knew that Artemis's fragile trust in him would crumble to dust.

As she lay there enjoying the feel of her husband beside her, she considered the fact that her Artemis really needed to work on the streak of perfectionism that ran through him. He tended to expect more consistency in himself and others than was humanly possible.

The evil man who did a good deed was just as perplexing to him as the good man who did an evil deed. In his earlier days, he'd have killed both of them just for breaking pattern unnecessarily.

These days, she didn't think he'd kill either, but his opinion of both would take a sharp downward turn. He wouldn't work for either.

Fortunately, all he expected of her was what she found easy to do—most of the time. He needed her to accept him and to love him, and she did. But he also needed her respect his judgment and to validate his decisions—including the ones she did not agree with.

For that reason, as she lay there in his arms, she told him he should go to Luskan. She told him he needed to be there on the ship, that they needed him along. Though it broke her heart to know he was putting himself in almost certain danger, she told him she would be fine and that she trusted him to be safe and come home to her again.

It seemed as though he relaxed against her just a bit more as he said, "I'll be fine. I promise to come home. If things get bad enough, I'll just use the ring."

The rings.

He'd brought them home one day and slipped hers onto her finger. "Now, no matter what happens, I'll be able to get to you," he'd declared. It was her safety he was concerned with. After the encounter with Cadderly and Danica Bonaduce, it was as if he'd realized that his old life could intrude at any time and that someone might use her as a weapon against him.

"If anyone ever threatens you, just tell the ring to bring you to me and it will," Artemis had said. Unspoken was the knowledge that if she were unconscious, he could tell his ring to do the same and be there at her side in an instant, swords drawn.

But as his jobs began to pull him away from home at times, she too had slept better at night knowing that if things got too bad, he could just come home. And if he were unable, she could go to him, dagger drawn.

Just hearing him say that he would use the ring if need be set her mind at ease as she settled against him. His body was warm against hers and his embrace was secure. Within moments, they slept at peace with one another.

Daylight found Entreri packing the last of his gear into his bag. He packed lightly, determined to make this trip as brief as possible, but knowing that they had a sail of several tendays there and back, not to mention waiting for their unloading time with such a large fleet.

Dwahvel watched him, her eyes never wavering. Finally, he walked over to the dresser where his swordbelt lay, but she called to him instead. He turned back to see her standing before the trunk at the foot of the bed where he kept Charon's Claw and the jeweled dagger.

"Take them," she instructed. firmly "Both of them. You take every advantage you can get out there, do you understand me? You do everything you have to do to make sure you come home."

He looked at her, looked past the hardness in her eyes to the fear that lay behind them. Then he dropped to his knee before the trunk and put his hands on her waist, looking her right in those cool green eyes. "I'm going to come home, with or without the blades," he declared. "But for you, I'll take them."

Then he kissed her and held her as she threw her arms around him. She held him as tightly as she could for a moment before letting go and stepping back again. Her eyes shone with unshed tears but she didn't cry. He was grateful. It would have been so much worse to have left her crying.

Then he pulled out the blades and put them on. With a touch to the hilts, he spoke to them and mastered them in one move. Both were excited and willing, but he was less than thrilled to have them at his side again. It felt almost like moving backwards to bear them. His mood darkened and he felt himself frown.

Dwahvel must have understood what was going through his mind because she stepped up onto the trunk to put herself at his eye level and stated, "These are tools. Nothing more. They are not you and they do not define you. You can choose to pick them up and put them down as it pleases you."

He nodded and gave her another kiss. "I'll be home in a couple of months," he stated firmly, promise in his tone. "I love you."

"I know you do," she responded warmly. "And I know you'll come back to me."

But they both knew that knowing wasn't doing.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Captain Manfred Jarrol leaned against the rail of Bonfire's quarterdeck and watched the water swirl past the stern of the boat with a white foamy rush. The warm southern winds had been favorable, pushing them ahead of schedule toward Luskan.

Plus, the days had been relatively springlike for the past week or so. He hoped the warm weather had stretched north of them to hurry the thaw of Luskan Harbor. He was more than ready to arrive, unload, and head home again. Despite the pleasure of his son's company for once, he missed his wife and three little daughters very much.

Turning away from the rail and back to the activity aboard ship, he could see the various groups of sailors at work in the rigging, the helmsman keeping her straight and true in their position at the far western edge of the flotilla from Waterdeep.

The flotilla was comprised of at least twenty ships that they knew of, one of the largest in Waterdeep history. Jarrol knew most of the other captains as solid, trustworthy individuals, good seamen, and able tacticians.

They were also escorted by four pirate hunters, none so famous as the Sea Sprite, which lay at anchor already in Luskan, but all experienced crews with able wizards. The nearest, Devil Ray, rode the waves behind them, stationed to intercept any raiders coming at the group from the west.

Their ship's wizard Mellisandra had struck up a friendship with the Devil Ray's wizard, a middle-aged man named Fortescue, and spent most of her time in communication with him by magical means--to the unremitting disapproval of his ship's swordmaster, the incredible Artemis Entreri.

Entreri would much rather Mellisandra spent her time casting additional protection enchantments on the ship or sharpening her fireball skills than flirting with Fortescue.

Jarrol had to laugh at the memory of their latest confrontation. They'd argued in the hallway between their cabins for a full five minutes before Mellisandra stamped her foot and simply disappeared. Then as he recalled the look of deadly fury on Entreri's face, he stopped laughing.

Mellisandra did not return that night, much to the captain's relief. He wanted the swordmaster to have plenty of time to cool down before meeting the wizard again. By the time she showed her face aboard ship again, Entreri's icy control had descended once more. Jarrol was glad he did not need to fear for her life.

He considered the change that had come over Entreri since he first met him so many months ago. When Entreri ran onto his ship just before departure from Calimport, his little wife in his arms, he'd seemed a man whose self-control was running thin. Jarrol had been concerned that he was a possible danger to the ship, in fact.

But within days of their sail, Entreri had settled into a routine, one that included sunrise on deck. Jarrol did not know how many mornings he'd come up to watch it himself and seen the swordsman sitting there alone or with Mistress Entreri in his arms. He'd not approached him any of those days, but watched his own sunrise out of view.

It was during those moments that Jarrol felt as if he were seeing the real Artemis Entreri, and over the next tendays, he decided that Entreri was a man who could be trusted to do what he said he would do. Seeing his prowess with that terrible red sword of his had convinced him that he was both correct to fear him and to trust that he would follow through on any of his stated intentions.

Since then, Jarrol had come to respect him, not only as a swordmaster but as a business associate. None of the merchants in the guild that Jarrol was most closely allied with had anything negative to say about their association with him—with the notable exception of Tolliver, who claimed that his fees were too high.

The rest sang his praises for his honesty and scrupulous attention to detail. The guild had profited by their association with him and Jarrol had never regretted helping him make his entrance into the group.

But Entreri had never become anything that Jarrol would have considered a friend. He was an associate, an acquaintance, but far too reserved for any who knew him to claim friendship. During the long voyage, Jarrol wondered if the man would unbend a little and seek out companionship among the crew, but so far he'd seen little of it.

They spoke pleasantly to one another about the journey, about the concerns of the ship, but neither man ever brought up personal matters. The closest Jarrol had seen Entreri come to having a friendly conversation had been with Emory.

Entreri spent his days instructing the sailors on board, having borrowed a weapon from the ship's armory for sparring practice. Jarrol had not seen the mysterious red blade since its arrival on board at Entreri's hip.

Two of his young sailors, Cullon and Ballantin, sparred with him daily, as did Emory. The rest took up blades with varying degrees of skill and dedication as they had time.

Jarrol encouraged the men to take advantage of the swordmaster's willingness to work with them. He knew first hand how often skill with a sword could mean the difference between life and death. He had never had much time for instruction himself, but had always envied those of his acquaintance who knew how to handle a sword with skill.

He was glad Emory was getting the chance to learn from such a master swordsman. With a little surge of pride he recalled Entreri's statement that Emory had a gift for it.

A gift.

The captain couldn't help the little twinge of jealousy that crept up to join the pride. At thirty-six, Jarrol was watching his youth and prowess fade. At twelve, Emory was just beginning to uncover his.

Jarrol hoped his son would take advantage of every opportunity life offered him, every chance to be all that he could be. He hoped that if he should not be at his side to guide him, other men—men like Artemis Entreri--would step up to guide his son to manhood.

A sudden ringing noise caught Jarrol's attention, and he looked down to the open area before the mainmast where Entreri stood toe to toe with his first student of the day--Emory.

Jarrol watched with interest as his son led out again with the attack, his silver blade glinting in the sun. The captain walked out to the forward rail of the deck and looked down through the maze of rigging to watch.

Even from that distance, he could see the concentration in Emory's dark blue eyes, the same color as the ones that met his every morning in the shaving mirror. Jarrol was glad though that Emory had inherited his mother's straight wheat-colored hair rather than his own unruly brown mop.

The sun shone off the boy's head and Jarrol realized that his hair would be bleached nearly white by their return. He had already tanned deeply from his daily exposure to sunshine and had put on a good ten pounds of muscle from hard work both for Entreri and as a member of his crew.

Emory had been so excited to come on this trip and Jarrol had to admit, the boy had not disappointed him. He'd worked harder than any two of his regular hands, and the men had come to respect him, not for being the captain's son, but for his own willingness to serve the ship however he was needed.

He watched as the two crossed blades, as Emory studied his opponent for subtleties in body language, in stance, and in balance that would give away his plans. Jarrol knew swordsmanship enough to realize that Entreri fed him those clues carefully, sometimes allowing Emory to make the parry, sometimes leading him astray enough to teach him how to compensate.

The two went at it steadily for a good quarter hour. Jarrol had no idea how Emory held out so long against the steady rhythm of the assault coming at him. Toward the end, Entreri even sped up the pace of the lesson until Emory's chest heaved visibly with the effort of merely keeping breath inside his body.

Then with a tap to the side of his chest with the tip of his blade, Entreri ended the match, declaring, "You're dead, Emory."

"Yes, sir," Jarrol heard his son's breathless voice acknowledge as the boy leaned back heavily against the wall of the forecastle.

But rather than sit and rest for himself, Entreri turned to Cullon and Ballantin and asked, "Are you two ready?"

The older students looked at each other in disbelief and Ballantin ventured, "Sir, wouldn't you like to rest a moment?"

"Why?" Entreri replied indifferently as he motioned the two before him with the tip of the jeweled dagger in his left hand.

"Both of us?" Cullon asked.

"Certainly. You two need more work in fighting as a team," Entreri answered. "And even together you won't be much of a workout for me." The crew watching the show laughed at that, but within moments everyone realized Entreri was not bragging—he was speaking the truth.

The two young men came at him from opposite directions, each pressing the swordmaster as hard as he could, but Entreri stopped their blades with his easily. Then from the front, Cullon lunged at him while Ballantin slashed at him from the back.

The blade of Entreri's sword countered Ballantin's and pushed it away even as he half-blocked Cullon's lunge with the dagger, stepping away from the blade and nearly bringing the two men together to score hits on each other.

Then Entreri turned with the move and placed the two men in front of him. Cullon pressed ahead, working to gain an advantage in footing by avoiding the obstacles of the deck. Ballantin quickly moved beside him, leaving Entreri to maneuver past the anchor capstan and through a maze of coiled ropes, buckets, cleats, and lines as their blades clashed again and again in a fury of steel.

The two young men had underestimated him, however, and the surefooted swordmaster danced his way easily through the maze to place himself at the base of the steps that led to the upper deck. Jarrol moved to the side out of the way as the fight ranged up the steps and onto the wide quarterdeck.

Entreri looked to Jarrol to be somewhere near his own age, but he moved with the speed and agility of a man much younger. The two students began to work more earnestly in tandem with each other, one pressing his blade in high for the other to try to take advantage with a strike from below.

But Entreri could not be touched. Jarrol perched on the forward rail of the deck and watched as the two continued their assault, varying the speed and angle of their maneuvers, trying to get the master off balance by continued advances and retreats.

Soon sweat poured off Cullon and Ballantin, but Entreri didn't even appear to be breathing heavily. He countered their attacks and fended off their advances almost lazily. Jarrol could see that the swordmaster was teasing the two younger men, allowing them to run the fight because it pleased him to do so.

But the two students picked up the pace again and pressed him toward the aft rail of the ship in a desperate attempt to corner him and actually land a hit on the elusive master. The drop from the rail to the ocean below was a good twenty feet at least and the water rushed by the ship with a trail of foam.

Anyone who fell over at that point would be long in the water before the ship could tack around and try to retrieve them. It would be folly, the two young men each thought, to take too many chances that close to disaster.

So they drove the swordmaster backwards to the edge of the deck, until the rail was all that stood between him and the dark water. Then without warning, Entreri nimbly jumped backwards up onto the rail, balanced perfectly against the wind and motion, before executing a forward somersault over their heads to land behind them.

"Come on, boys," he taunted them as they looked around to find him, their eyes wide with astonishment. "Let's finish this sometime today."

The two launched into him again and the air rang with the sound of clashing blades. Cullon was the first to fall, taking an elbow into the nerves of his shoulder that numbed his arm and caused him to drop his sword. A light tap on the side of the neck with the tip of Entreri's dagger told him he was dead.

Ballantin kept up the fight for a few more seconds until his throat too felt the cold flat of Entreri's steel. However behind the two fighters, Cullon had rearmed himself and was just waiting for the right moment to press his advantage, unethical though it might be.

Just as Ballantin lowered his sword in defeat, Cullon sprang ahead. Jarrol heard a voice cry out in warning, "Sir, watch out!" But Entreri had already turned to meet the attack he knew was coming from the previously defeated Cullon.

He slapped Cullon's blade aside easily with the flat of his own and ran the young man backward into the rail with a forearm across his neck. The swordmaster easily undermined Cullon's balance and sent him flailing backwards over the rail.

A collective gasp rose from the crew as Entreri reached out to catch him by the wrist just in time to keep the young man from falling overboard.

However, before he pulled his student back to the safety of the deck, he asked him, "Are you truly dead this time or do you need to be deader?"

At Cullon's quick affirmation that he was indeed dead enough already, Entreri called back over his shoulder to Ballantin, "And are you dead enough back there, Ballantin? Or do I need to come kill you further as well?"

"No, sir," Ballantin maintained from a safe spot mid-deck, "I am plenty dead enough, sir."

Then and only then did Entreri pull the panting Cullon back onto the deck to safety to the sound of applause from the highly entertained crew.

Jarrol watched as Entreri walked down to the main deck again toward the boy who had tried to warn him of Cullon's treachery. Emory stood there, his eyes wide. "Sir, how did you know Cullon was coming to attack you?" the boy asked.

"I trained him," came Entreri's answer. "Always take advantage of every opportunity against your foe."

"Even when it is cheating?" Emory asked.

"In life and death matters there is no such thing as cheating," Entreri cautioned. "Pirates do not play fair and neither do orcs nor goblins."

"Have you fought orcs and goblins as well as pirates?" Emory asked in wonder.

Entreri just looked at him for a moment. He'd fought so much worse than orcs and goblins in his day that the question seemed incredibly insipid.

"Tell me about it, sir," Emory persisted in amazement. "Tell me about the monsters you've fought."

And to Entreri's deep and abiding surprise, he found himself telling the boy about his encounter with the red dragon Hephaestus. Once that tale had been well and almost truly told, he realized his audience had grown from one boy to several sailors, including Cullon and Ballantin.

Well, he thought with an inward shrug, not all instruction is physical, and launched into a telling of some of his best swordwork done as a team effort. To his chagrin, the best examples of those happened to be with Drizzt Do'Urden at his back. He refused to give in to naming him, however, referring to him only as "the elf" and closing off their history with their escape from the Underdark.

"So, did you ever team up with the elf again?" Emory asked, excitement in his voice.

"No," came the terse reply.

"Why not? It sounds like you made a great team," the boy persisted, and Cullon and Ballantin were half-witted enough to agree with him.

"A man can fight beside you one day and against you the next," Entreri warned. But in his heart he knew that Drizzt Do'Urden would never have fought against him that last time if Entreri hadn't forced his hand.

All the animosity between them in that encounter could be laid firmly at Entreri's door.

And Jarlaxle's, he recalled grimly.

But his response was sufficiently harsh to put off further questions and he rose to head back to his stateroom.

Captain Jarrol met him in the companionway. "Some stories," he commented.

"Indeed," Entreri stated and made to walk past him.

"Did you and this elf eventually come to blows?" Jarrol asked.

"We did."

"I assume I am looking at the victor of that battle, then."

"There was no victor. Do'Urden did not fall by my blade."

Jarrol looked at him curiously. "Do'Urden? Drizzt Do'Urden? The drow elf that serves with Captain Deudermont?"

"Serves?" Entreri heard himself ask. He'd always wondered if Jarlaxle had spoken truth about that day. If his old nemesis had truly died in that crystal tower.

"Yes," Jarrol stated calmly. "He serves alongside Captain Deudermont in Luskan. There was rumor that he'd been killed when the Hosttower fell, but according to the latest news, he survived the explosion and went to Icewind Dale with his halfling companion. They are to return in the spring."

"Then there was no loser in our battle either," Entreri commented and passed by the captain and into his stateroom.

He sat on the edge of his bunk and considered Jarrol's words.

How ironic.

Drizzt Do'Urden alive. And headed to Luskan. With his halfling companion. A thief from Calimport.

Idly, Entreri twisted the ring on his finger that would send him away from Luskan. To Dwahvel. His halfling companion. A thief from Calimport.

Did the ironic reversals end there? Entreri wondered.

Was Drizzt Do'Urden losing himself in the same ways that Artemis Entreri was finding himself? Had the drow discovered his inner assassin? Was he busily searching for ways to make his life mean less rather than more? Was he throwing away his life as earnestly as Entreri was seeking his?

Entreri twisted his ring and thought about Dwahvel. He tried to hear her voice, to see her face, to feel her next to him. And without intending to he nearly opened the portal between them.

But even as he pushed the enchantment away from him, he wanted to bring it back. He didn't want to go to Luskan. He certainly did not want to face Drizzt Do'Urden again, to dredge up that part of his past long buried, long ignored.

But Luskan lay only days away.

And he'd given his word he would see Captain Jarrol and Bonfire safely to Luskan.

A word he would not break. Not for Dwahvel. Nor for himself. Certainly not for Drizzt Do'Urden.

Not for anyone.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

The night watch firmly believed that the mysterious Artemis Entreri never slept. In all the watches he'd ever kept on the ship, the swordmaster had slipped out of the shadows at least once during every one of them to take a turn about the deck, sometimes to stand at the rail and watch the stars or the sunrise, before heading back down below.

This night was no exception. They were only a few days out of port, the weather was calm, sails were running light. The helmsman was nearly asleep on his feet with boredom and the watch was fast following when Entreri suddenly appeared beside the wheel. It was almost as if he'd slipped out of the shadows themselves, so unexpected was his arrival on deck.

The helmsman jerked himself back to wakefulness and adjusted their course a touch, more to prove he'd been on duty than to truly correct their heading. Up ahead on the forecastle deck, the watch also caught sight of the helmsman's movement and held the spyglass up to his eye to scan the empty horizon to the north and west, then to scan back over the dim line of ships to the east, their little lights blinking in the distance.

The watch first only did so to prove to himself and to the demanding swordmaster that he was alert at his post, but saw something as he scanned that gave him pause. "Mr. Entreri, sir," he called to the man walking the deck. "Will you come look at this, sir, and tell me what you think it is?"

With a few quick strides, Entreri had crossed the deck and up the short flight of stairs. Taking the spyglass from the watch, he scanned in the direction the man pointed. A small dim glow dotted the horizon to the east with another just ahead of it. Then another appeared just behind.

Fire.

Those were ships on fire.

The fleet was under attack.

"We're under attack," Entreri declared firmly. "Raise the alarm."

The blood ran out of the watch's face as he ran to the ship's bell and rang with all his might shouting, "All hands! All hands! The fleet is under attack! All hands!"

Entreri dashed back down the deck and into his stateroom. Within a few seconds, his heavy leather vest lay buckled across his chest and Charon's Claw hung at his hip. He brought his spare sword out with him and tossed it at the first unarmed sailor he saw.

Then he went after Mellisandra. Her cabin door was locked, but he picked it without thought, knowing already that she'd not bothered to set any other enchantments. Sure enough, the wizard lay asleep in her bunk, not a bit bothered by the sound of the ringing alarm bell.

"Get up, Mellisandra!" he called to her sternly. "We're under attack."

"What?" she asked stupidly.

"We're under attack. The ships to the east are burning. Get up and get out there and keep us from burning too!" he snapped at her. He could only hope she'd taken the precaution of setting up a good arsenal of spellwork.

He ran onto the deck in time to see Cullon and Ballantin take the deck, swords drawn at the ready. "What do we do, sir?" Cullon called.

"We wait," Entreri replied firmly.

Jarrol ran onto the deck, sword in hand as well. "What is it?" he asked Entreri.

"The ships to the east are on fire," Entreri replied. "Beyond that, I do not know." Then he looked around. "Where is Emory?"

"I told him to stay below," Jarrol answered.

"Good."

Mellisandra appeared on deck, her hair swirled over her head to one side from the pillow. She sorted through an assortment of spell components and wands at her disposal, all the time talking to herself.

"What is the matter?" Entreri asked.

"I don't know what I'll need," she answered angrily. "Until we find out just what weapons they have, what spells they are using, I just don't know what I'll need."

Entreri had to walk away from her. The last thing he needed was to hear that their wizard was not ready. How many times had he drilled her? How many times had he asked her if she was ready for anything? How many smart replies had he endured?

Behind them, Devil Ray had turned to intercept whatever was wreaking such havoc on the ships to the east. It was not five hundred yards away from them when it suddenly burst into a flaming fireball. Men fell overboard in the blast, but began to scream in the water. Then they heard screams coming from the deck of the pirate hunter and could see shadowy forms crawling out of the water and up the sides.

"Lacedons," Jarrol whispered in horror. "I've got to get Emory away from the windows." Then as he ran to his stateroom for his son he called out the warning, "Lacedons! Don't let them scratch you or bite you! Kill them!"

"Lacedons," Mellisandra echoed, her voice horrified. "I don't have anything prepared for the undead! I was told to expect pirates, not water ghouls!"

A sudden impact on the bottom of the ship's hull echoed up through the timbers and into their feet. Then it impacted again like a giant's war hammer from the deep.

"Keep us afloat, Mellisandra!" Entreri instructed sharply. "I'll deal with the lacedons. You just keep this ship afloat!"

The ship rang again with the heavy blow from below, but the hull with the additional enchantments held true. That was one good thing, Entreri thought grimly as he pulled his blades from his belt and prepared to fight.

But as the lacedons came out of the water, their ghoulish faces half rotted and diseased, their gray-green fingers with cracked, savagely sharp talons effortlessly clawing their way up the boards of the ship, the stench rolling off them enough to cause more than one man to vomit uncontrollably, Entreri knew as they watched that staying afloat was only a portion of their worries.

Even as the undead monsters began to crawl over the rail, the men began to fight them off. But as fast as one fell from the side, two more came to take its place. Entreri knew that within moments they would be overrun. There was nothing to do but fight, so he threw himself into the fray with a vengeance.

The entire ship shivered again with the force of yet another blow from underneath, the deck boards creaking ominously with the strain, and Mellisandra went below to be certain the hull was still holding. She staggered down the steps, blasting a lacedon with a lightning bolt, making sure the shot counted before she took it. She only had a limited supply of assaults that would work against these monsters.

Her feet tangled in her robes as she hurried down the ladders to the deepest part of the ship. The hold appeared to be intact at least, she thought. Then another blow from the deep slammed into the boards at her feet, sending her stumbling with the force of it.

Spell components fell from her sash pockets as she hit the floor. What was out there? A kraken? She reached into her sash and pulled out a tiny piece of dried flesh. Then she breathed on it and spoke a soft word to complete the spell. In her hand, the dry thing suddenly began to glisten and shine all silvery-gray. Then it panted a little and began to flop in her hand.

"I'll miss you," Mellisandra whispered with regret, then pulled a wand from her sash and teleported the little sardine out into the big ocean outside the ship. She closed her eyes and watched through the little fish's eyes as it circled beneath the boat.

Lacedons swirled past it through the water, a seemingly endless stream of them. Mellisandra's breath caught in her throat as she realized that no matter what happened to the boat, the men above her were doomed.

All her combat spells were aimed at humans. She could stun them by the dozens. She could confound them by the score. By principle, she was a non-lethal wizard as much as possible, specializing in immobilizing or confusing the enemy rather than killing him.

But she had not prepared anything that would be of much use against the undead. Entreri would be furious with her. He'd ranted and raved at her repeatedly about every possible contingency—to the point that she'd begun to tune him out the minute he started lecturing.

Her artifact arsenal was also practically useless. She clenched her only wand of teleportation in her hand tightly, aware that she'd spent the last of its teleportation charges on sending her little spy outside the boat. She couldn't even bring it back, much less send all fifteen doomed sailors home with it.

Damn Fortescue. Why couldn't he have come to her at least part of the time? If she'd had only half the uses back that she'd spent sending herself back and forth to his cabin on the Devil Ray, she'd be able to send all of them home, safe and sound.

As it was, all she had hanging for casting was one teleportation spell for herself. If she could link up with a couple of the men, she could take them back with her, she supposed. Perhaps they all didn't have to die here.

Then as the little fish swam swiftly underneath the ship, it encountered the incredible force that pounded relentlessly at the hull of the boat. She recognized him at once.

Arklem Geeth. The lich of the Hosttower.

Her start of fear was so powerful that even her spy felt it, darting off in terror away from the hollow, red eyes of the lich.

Mellisandra tried to bring it back under control, but its limited intelligence and the increasing distance between them made it hard to reason with. Then she realized that it was heading directly for the hull of the Devil Ray, which listed heavily in the water.

It swam up, its fear evaporating with its short attention span, and began to cruise the hull. Through its eyes, Mellisandra could see that the hull looked rotted, half dissolved in places. The fish darted through a jagged hole and she could see the blast marks of a huge fireball on the walls around her.

Then something soft billowed into view and the fish went up to investigate.

Fortescue.

Her lover floated in the water that flooded the hull of the ship, his eyes vacant, a hole blasted through his chest. His short brown hair waved idly in the motion of the current around his head.

The little fish darted forward to his face, then back, Mellisandra watching through his eyes, numbed with shock and grief.

Then the sardine darted down to the torn flesh of his chest and began to nibble away a bite of breakfast.

Mellisandra tore her attention away with a sob of horror and found herself back in the hull of the Bonfire, retching uncontrollably. The hull shivered around her again and echoed with the awful noise of Arklem Geeth's magical assault on the boat. Leaks had begun to spring around her, shooting fine streams of water across the cabin.

The lich wouldn't stop until he felt sure the boat was doomed, she knew that. The lacedons wouldn't stop coming until they were all dead, she knew that.

Fortescue.

A sob caught again in her throat.

The linchpin word of her teleportation spell sprang to her lips, but she didn't speak it. Before she left them, she'd do all she could to help. She was their ship's wizard. It was the least she could do.

On the deck, Entreri faced the never-ending stream of undead with calm detachment. No lacedon could stand before him for long before finding itself beheaded or cleaved apart. However, he kept his movements easy and deliberate, conserving his energy for what he knew would be a long fight ahead of them.

He shouted as much to Cullon and Ballantin, calming them enough to slow their breathing and keep their strikes controlled. On the foredeck, Jarrol fought off the ones who were foolish enough to get close to the alcove beneath the forecastle where Emory crouched, his blade drawn at the ready, even though his father had no intention of allowing any lacedon close enough to his son to fight.

A pile of undead bodies had already begun to mount before the captain and the valiant crewmembers as they methodically hacked and slashed and pierced their opponents.

Then the lacedons began to climb the rigging and masts, tearing at the sails and lines with their inhumanly sharp nails and teeth. They fell on to the sailors from above, knocking the cook off the side of the boat into the waves below where waiting lacedons ripped him apart screaming.

Without warning, a blast shook the boat with the creak and pop of breaking timber and the boat began to list to the larboard side, rolling over in the water a good fifteen degrees and throwing the men and the lacedons off their feet. Air bubbles began to surface from the breach in the hull.

Entreri kept his footing and used the movement to place himself in the path of several of the monsters, neatly taking advantage of their momentary imbalance to shear their heads and limbs from their bodies.

However, he watched as Ballantin took a savage clawing down the leg by one of the creatures as it slid past him. The young man immediately began to stagger and limp, his leg quickly paralyzed by the venom in its nails. Cullon moved to his weak side then and made up for his partner's immobility by taking the burden of defense from that angle.

Captain Jarrol had also been knocked from his feet by a tumbling monster, coming to stand again several feet from his previous position. Emory was now open to attack. But Entreri could see the flash of the young man's blade out of the corner of his eye as Emory met the challenge steadily.

Judging from the noise and the sudden roll of the boat, Entreri truly expected to begin sinking at any moment. However, the deck steadied beneath their feet as the battle continued. To his relief, the horrible pounding on the hull did not continue.

He kept himself fully exposed on the open quarterdeck at the stern of the boat where he would have access to the largest number of combatants as possible. The angle of the deck made it easier to dispose of the carcasses of the defeated as well, he noted. They tended to just roll away in pieces from his blade, leaving the way clear for the next round of attackers.

The other sailors were either dead already or had found ways to limit the number that might meet them by standing in corners or with their backs to the walls of the forecastle and quarterdeck. Cullon and Ballantin still fought back to back, their blades flashing tirelessly in the moonlight.

Jarrol, however, was in the open alone and not faring as well as Entreri would like. He bore clear signs of gashes on his arms and face, and the effort of fighting the poison was slowing him. The best way to his aid was not through the press of monsters on the deck, but through the shadows. Unfortunately, travel in shadow onboard ship, he'd learned, was not an exact science.

There was indeed a ship on the shadowplane, a ship that mimicked Bonfire in many ways, right down to the shadowy versions of her crew. However, the placement of the ship on the water was never exactly duplicated in shadow and could be anything from several inches to several hundred yards off the material plane.

Seeing Jarrol drop to one knee, however, made up Entreri's mind and he slipped into the shadow of the rail.

On the positive side, he did not find himself in the ocean. He did find himself on a completely different part of the shadow ship, however, and to his surprise, still surrounded by lacedons. Apparently whatever force had called them on the material was strong enough to summon them across shadow as well.

The men aboard the shadow ship also fought the monsters, their blades dark in the non-light of the moon above. Entreri lent his blade to the task there as well, easily cutting through the press of creatures. The shadow stones also began to hum against his side there in his pocket, and he became aware that the stones were calling the monsters to them in a sort of passive attraction.

Could they be used to dispel as well? he wondered.

There in shadow, the stones were easy to work and he found himself driving the monsters back with their power. He knew it would require much more concentration to do it on the material plane, but it could be done.

He cut through the path of shadowy undead like a flame in the darkness, the color of his blade and his clothing a stark contrast to the grays of the ship and crew around him. When he reached his desired place of return, hopefully at Jarrol's side and not in the surrounding water, he gave a nod to the nearest confused crewman and began to step back out.

But there was no way out. All the shadows on the material plane, the only exits from this world back into his own, were gone.

He was trapped.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Bonfire was awash in light from Mellisandra's spell. Some of the lacedons turned to flee the unreal brightness, but most ignored it and kept up their relentless approach and attack. The wash of light, however, gave heart to the men, as did the wizard's appearance.

She stood at the doorway that led up onto the deck, protected by a bubble of force around her, and shot lightning bolt after lightning bolt at the monsters. When those ran out, she sent fireball after fireball over the waves, incinerating any lacedons foolhardy enough to break the surface.

Unfortunately her fireballs weren't much help to the men on the deck. Despite Entreri's repeated demands for precision, she'd always been a big picture kind of girl, and in close quarters, her fireballs would either consume the men as well as the lacedons or simply burn the ship down around them.

Off to the side, she saw one of the crewmen go down beneath a crush of undead, which began to tear at him with their teeth. She shot the last of her lethal attacks at them in an attempt to rescue the man, but the monsters just kept coming. To her horror, his screams began to echo across the decks as the lacedons consumed him alive.

Feeling completely useless, she finally stunned the man with one of her many, many stunning spells so at least he wouldn't feel any more before the end came.

Her bubble of force began to shrink around her, and her magical light spell began to fade, allowing the return of darkness and shadows to the deck. To her surprise, a very shaken Artemis Entreri stepped out of the shadow of the mast before her, his eyes darting around.

"What did you do?" he asked angrily. "Why weren't there shadows?"

"It was an illumination spell," she explained in confusion.

"Don't do it again," he snapped and turned to where Jarrol had been. The captain was no longer there.

Instead Emory stood in his place, his sword flashing as he stood guard over his father's fallen form in the alcove. The boy fought bravely, but was tiring.

Entreri looked around to see that all that still remained were tiring.

And the lacedons kept coming. He continued to fight them himself, an unending stream of undead creatures--tireless, emotionless, deterred only by the light of the rising sun which was hours away.

They'd never last that long. He looked up to call to Mellisandra, to ask her what else she could do, but even as he looked up at her, she began to vanish. She was teleporting herself to safety.

And the look of apology in her eyes, the sad little shrug she gave him was a mirror of Jarlaxle's in Urshula's cave. She was leaving them to die.

He fought back another round of monsters, anger fueling his blade.

Then he realized that he too could teleport himself away. The ring on his finger would take him to Dwahvel. He'd drop right into his bed in Waterdeep as if the whole thing had been merely a bad dream.

But as soon as he thought it, he knew he couldn't do it. He couldn't leave these men to fight and die that way. Even if he died at their side, he could not abandon them like that. Not like Mellisandra. Or Jarlaxle.

He began to call on the powers of the shadow stone as he did on the shadow plane. Indeed it took much more concentration on the material. So much concentration that some of the creatures actually got past his defenses to land hits on him, their talons ripping through his clothing and into the flesh of his arms and legs.

He pulled back from the stones enough to fight them off again, to fight back the paralysis that began to seep into his bones. Then he heard a high pitched cry. He looked up to see that Emory was almost overcome by lacedons. Cullon and Ballantin still stood, but their arms were exhausted and they were too far away to reach the boy in time.

He tried to slip into shadow to get to him, and nearly fell into the shadow ocean. The ships were no longer close enough. He fought harder, working to reach the boy's side to relieve him, but too many of the tireless undead stood between them. He couldn't cut through them fast enough.

Emory cried out again, and Entreri saw the boy's blue eyes opened wide with pain and terror as he stumbled backwards; he saw his blond head sink beneath the press of ghoulish forms.

Then he began to scream.

Entreri threw down his sword and closed his eyes. He poured himself into the stones with all his might, ignoring the scratches and clawings that assaulted him. A particularly large creature took a bite out of his arm, sending a fiery blast of agony into his flesh through those razor sharp teeth. Then as others took advantage of easy prey, he felt their teeth tearing the flesh from his body as well.

But he ignored the pain and became a pure force of will, as powerful as when he'd mastered Charon's Claw. Time stood still as he emptied himself of all but the will to dispel these things, these undead abberations, these crimes against life.

He poured all his energy and his hatred and his fear into the banishment until a dark wave of power rolled off him, not only dispelling the creatures, but blasting them apart with its fury. Those that could not flee were annihilated in the spellstorm that rolled across the waters.

In only moments it was over.

The sounds of battle stopped abruptly as the lacedons collapsed into gravedust and blew away.

The deck was empty of all but the crew, some living, some dead. Entreri staggered forward, forcing himself to move against the numbness that crept up his limbs and into his back and chest. He ignored the searing pain in his arms and legs where the savage bites bled freely and coursed with ghoulish toxins.

Cullon and Ballantin hung on each other for support in their exhaustion, both bloody and scored by lacedon nails, but otherwise mobile.

Jarrol crawled forward out of the alcove on shaking arms to where Emory lay on the deck, his blue eyes wide in their last terror, his chest and belly a mess of blood and torn flesh where the lacedons had feasted.

"Emory?" Jarrol whispered in a weak, desperate voice as he dragged himself to his son's body. He reached out and pulled the boy against his chest, brushing his hair back from his face. "Emory?" he called again.

Then the captain looked down at the blood that covered the youth, at the gory cavity in his body where the organs had been ripped away. Entreri knelt across from him, stunned by the sight of the empty shell where just moments ago there had been a life, a personality, a future.

They sat in silence. Then Jarrol looked out across the darkness of the water as if searching for something.

"He fought so hard, didn't he?" Jarrol's voice was soft and distant. "He was beautiful to watch."

They sat there a long while longer, no one able to move, to speak.

Then Jarrol looked at Entreri, his eyes haunted, and asked plaintively, "What do I tell his mother, Artemis? What can I tell his mother?"

Entreri could only watch helplessly as the reality of death welled up inside Jarrol, breaching his defenses.

The sky was dark and the ocean was motionless against the ship as its captain bent his head over the body of his son and wept, his shoulders shaking with the sobs, the rest of the men looking on in the quiet of the night.

Over the next hour, the fires on the horizon went out one by one as the ships either sank or burned themselves out to empty hulks. No one was left alive.

In Cullon's opinion, the only reasons they still lived were their position at the farthest edge of the flotilla and the presence of Artemis Entreri on board.

Given time, he fully believed the swordsmaster could have single-handedly slaughtered every lacedon the sea tried to send them. However, he knew that if Entreri hadn't somehow cast a spell to drive them away, he and Ballantin would have been the next to fall.

Of the ships' crew, only seven survived. Three other men had taken refuge in the aft storage room, taking turns guarding the door. Even then one of them had been bitten and all had been scored horribly by the lacedons' claws.

Ballantin dug through the medic's supplies, supposing the medic himself to be in pieces somewhere on deck or in the dark water around the ship, until he found the healing potions that remained. There were enough for them each to take one, and the men's wounds, even the horrible bites taken out of Entreri's body, healed fully.

However, he knew enough ocean lore to realize that for Entreri and Caplin, the other bitten crewmember, the next 24 hours were crucial. Lacedon bites were not only diseased, they were cursed. Bite victims either developed ghoul fever over the next day and lived, or they died. If they died, they'd rise again at midnight as ghouls themselves.

Caplin was only bitten once.

Entreri had been bitten at least three times.

However, the possibility of fever did not deter the swordmaster from taking matters in hand brusquely. He ordered the surviving crew to secure the decks, setting their course for Luskan. Then he had them begin gathering the remains of deceased crewmembers for burial at sea.

Ballantin went to pick up the swordmaster's fallen red sword from the deck, but Entreri stopped him with a sharp word. "Do not touch that sword. Ever." Without another word, Entreri took Charon's Claw and placed it back in his cabin.

When he returned to the deck, the men had begun their grisly task, but Jarrol still sat next to Emory's still form, his face wet with tears, though his eyes were now dry.

"Manfred," Entreri said quietly as he knelt beside him, "we need to get him ready."

"I want to take him home, Artemis," Jarrol stated calmly. "I need to take him back to his mother."

"I wish we could," Entreri replied. "But we do not have any enchantments to allow us to do so."

Jarrol sat for a moment, then looked up at Entreri, his broken heart evident in his eyes. "Will you help me?" he asked.

Entreri nodded and held out his hand to assist the captain to his feet. Together they went to Emory's hammock in Jarrol's quarters and took his blanket.

Then they went back onto the deck where they carefully lifted the boy's body onto it. Entreri was amazed by how light he was. In death he weighed practically nothing. Then they wrapped him securely, sewing the blanket tight.

All around them the surviving crew was doing the same thing, carefully wrapping bodies with calm detachment.

At some time in the next few hours, the sun rose around them, but they failed to notice. At last, the bodies lay in a line together at the rail of the Bonfire and the group stood around at a loss.

No one wanted to take the initiative to begin the process of consigning their fallen crewmates to the deep. Jarrol kept going back to kneel at Emory's head, placing his hand on the soft blue blanket that his wife had sent with her son to keep him warm at night.

The day wore on to noon. Finally, Entreri stepped forward and said, "We have no choice. Does anybody want to say anything?"

No one spoke up. The men just looked at each other. There were no words for this.

One by one, they tossed the bodies overboard, coming last to the youngest of their crew. Jarrol knelt again at his head. "If we could only get him home," he sighed again. "If there was only a way to get him home."

Then he looked up at Entreri, a question in his eyes. Entreri nodded and knelt at the boy's feet. Together they lifted the lifeless form and as one tossed it over the side. Neither man watched it sink. Both turned away.

Jarrol took a few steps, then put his head against the mast and cried. When Cullon placed his hand lightly on the grieving man's arm, Jarrol turned and leaned into him, weeping brokenly onto his shoulder.

"He was a good kid, captain," Cullon said quietly as Jarrol finally stepped away.

"Aye, sir," Ballantin added, stepping forward as he wiped his eyes to give the older man a firm, quick embrace. "He was a fine sailor."

One by one the rest came forward to offer their condolences with a few comforting words, a hug, and a handshake.

Only Entreri hung back, a frown on his face.

Their words were empty platitudes about what a good boy Emory had been. What did that matter now?

What did it matter at all that he'd been good? That he'd possessed all the natural talent to have rivaled the best swordsmen in Faerun? That he had so much potential? That he could have made a difference in the world?

All that potential, all that goodness, all that inquisitiveness, all that desire, all that life, lay wrapped in a blanket at the bottom of the sea with an empty hole where its heart ought to be. Everything that had been Emory Jarrol was gone forever and nothing anyone said or felt or did would bring him back now.

Entreri stood there in a cold sweat as he considered his own life. When he was twelve years old, someone could have slit his throat in any alley in Calimport and no one would have missed him, much less mourned his loss.

He'd had over thirty years since then to use his life however he saw fit and chose to apply himself to taking—taking things, taking secrets, taking lives, taking futures. And in all those years, if anyone had ever slit his throat in an alley in Calimport, no one would have mourned him and many would have celebrated.

He'd had over thirty years to throw away in hatred and anger, while this boy—this good boy with all the potential to be so much more—died horribly before his life ever started.

Entreri looked up at the sun in the sky, now hanging low, and asked how it could look down on a place where evil thrived and good perished. How could it look down at Emory Jarrol's meaningless death, at his father's terrible loss, and do nothing?

Where was justice in this? Where was right that he should continue to draw breath on this earth after all the pointlessly vile things he'd done and this good, innocent boy be cut off?

He knew where the wrong lay. He'd seen enough evil in his day, had done enough evil in his lifetime to understand it intimately. He knew the unthinking evil of the lacedons, he knew the self-absorbed evil of the ones who'd sent them.

For he understood that this was the attack Jarlaxle warned him of. This was the ultimate defeat of the city of Luskan. The caravan was also as good as doomed.

And how many people would lie dead in Luskan as a result? How many good, innocent boys like this one wouldn't get a chance to live because evil wanted a free port to ply its trade?

He didn't notice that Caplin had collapsed just down the deck and that the others had gone to him. He didn't notice that Jarrol spoke to him as he went to help them.

All Artemis Entreri could see was Emory Jarrol's wide blue eyes, looking to him for help. All he could hear was Emory's piercing screams as the lacedons began to feast on him alive.

He blinked, aware that his vision was blurring, only to focus on a shimmer on the deck. A form solidified before him.

Mellisandra.

The wizard had returned.

With an animal snarl, he leaped at her.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Jarrol saw Entreri's movement out of the corner of his eye, but before he could even fully turn, the swordmaster had knocked the wizard flat of her back and held his jeweled dagger at her throat. Jarrol could see blood beginning to flow down her neck.

But she was alive. Her eyes were wide with terror and her face was pale as Entreri spoke into her ear.

Quickly Jarrol crossed over to do what he could to help her, but stopped when he heard the swordmaster's words.

"So you've come back, have you? Now that it's safe? Now that the lacedons are gone, you think you can come back here and live?" Entreri's voice was icy calm and quiet.

"If you'd been here, Emory might have had a chance," he said quietly, reasonably. "If you'd been here just to cast a spell to allow us to get him home, to a cleric who might be able to pull him back, if you'd been here even for that, Mellisandra, I would let you live."

The jeweled dagger at her throat twitched a little and Jarrol noticed her gasp of breath, her level of terror escalating much more than such a tiny movement should have provoked.

"But you left us to die, didn't you? You left us all to die and now you will die. You will die a piece at a time, in agony, just like that boy did," Entreri's voice was smooth and even in its promise.

Mellisandra's fingers clutched spasmodically at the boards of the deck as if she was trying to cast, but couldn't find the concentration to do so. Another twitch of the blade and she was still again, the whites of her eyes showing clearly in her face, wide in horror.

"I'm going to drain you of life so slowly, so painfully that you'll wish you'd never been born, Mellisandra. You'll wish your mother had drowned you as an infant. Every moment of the life you've lived so far won't make up for a second of the agony I'm going to put you through before you lie dead on this deck," his voice continued, an almost hypnotic sound to it.

However, Jarrol could see that Mellisandra was anything but hypnotized. The dagger twitched again, and she began to whimper, a helpless, awful sound, worse than her screams might have been.

"Emory died bravely, Mellisandra," Entreri chided, a false gentleness in his voice that chilled Jarrol to the bone. "Surely you can too."

Jarrol shook himself free of the sinister trance the swordmaster's voice wove around them and forced himself to step forward. He was also angry with the wizard, but he couldn't let Entreri kill her this way, not without knowing why she left, why she returned.

"Artemis," he called quietly from his side, "killing Mellisandra won't bring Emory back."

It hurt him to say the words, but he could tell it hurt Entreri just as badly to hear them. He could see the swordmaster blink. He could see his hold on Mellisandra waver just a little.

"Let her up, Artemis," Jarrol continued, coming to kneel before him at Mellisandra's head. "There was nothing she could have done for him."

Entreri's hand had begun to shake, the dagger's point making little jagged cuts in her skin until he forced it to be still again. His breath was becoming ragged; his eyes were losing focus.

"Artemis, there was nothing more you could have done for him either," Jarrol added quietly, looking Entreri right in the eyes. "Let her go."

The dagger point slipped away from the wizard's neck, leaving a bloody trail behind it, as Entreri stood up. He took three steps backward, then stood there shaking as Mellisandra struggled to her feet, her hand wiping at her neck.

"You are a coward, Mellisandra," Entreri managed, his voice rough with the effort of speaking. "If you weren't, you'd strike me down now, while you have a chance."

He stood there and looked at her as the world began to swirl and spin around him. Every bone in his body began to ache, from the small bones in his fingers to the long bones in his arms and legs to his teeth to his spine. Every joint in his body burned with the sudden rush of toxins in his system from the ghoul's bites.

He could feel his fever begin to climb, his eyeballs throbbing and burning with the heat. It felt like the air was growing thinner around him, as if some great dragon had burned all the oxygen away, leaving nothing but heat and poisonous fumes behind. He couldn't catch his breath.

His muscles spasmed painfully and the world began to tilt on its axis, but he kept standing, kept staring at her angrily. His anger stood between him and the pain he didn't want to acknowledge, the loss he kept pretending didn't exist. As long as he could be angry with her, he didn't have to grieve.

So he stayed angry all the way to his stateroom, all the way to his bunk, where he fell, unconscious before his body hit the mattress.

When Jarrol went to check on him a while later, he was surprised to see Entreri's door wide open, the man collapsed across his bunk. He shivered convulsively and Jarrol could feel the heat rising from his skin even from several inches away.

He called to Mellisandra, knowing that Entreri would be furious, but willing to risk that. At the moment, the wizard was the only person on board who could help him. She was the only chance he had--if she were willing to help the man who'd just tried to kill her, that is.

Hours later, Entreri awoke to voices. Every instinct called for him to come up fighting, but his body would not obey. He hurt all over. It felt as if every bone had been broken, and he knew just what that felt like. He'd come to consciousness hanging from a cliff outside Mithril Hall once in exactly that condition.

That miserable halfling Regis had cut him loose from said cliff, hoping he would fall to his death on the rocks below. Granted, the thief did have his reasons, and at that moment the pain had been so bad, he'd welcomed death. Jarlaxle had saved his life that day, but in that moment of misery hanging from the cliffside, he would much rather have died.

He felt much the same lying on his bunk in the Bonfire, wishing he could just die. For one thing, death would cut off the annoying voice of Mellisandra Deneviere. What was she doing in his cabin? He tried to open his eyes, but something lay across them. Something cool and wet. He tried to reach up to remove it, but his hands wouldn't work.

He was paralyzed and in agony. And forced to listen to Mellisandra's explanation of why she'd left.

He listened as she told of seeing the lich through the eyes of her familiar, of seeing the wreck of Devil Ray and its wizard, of breaking down the wall of the hold to allow the grain to pour into the larboard cabins so the boat would appear to be crippled.

And the bubbles from below? he wondered. Fortunately for his curiosity, Jarrol had noted them as well and asked.

"It was a bathwater spell of mine," she explained and her voice sounded sheepish. "I call it 'a bit of the bubbly.'"

Entreri wished he had the strength to roll his eyes. She was officially useless.

He listened as she told of expending all her usable spells, then returning to Waterdeep to hang some new ones, of scrying the boat and coming back to make sure the survivors made it to Luskan safely.

Jarrol asked questions along, but mostly listened, as did Entreri—but not by choice. He still wanted to wring her neck for stubbornness, for laziness, and for lack of initiative.

Then Jarrol said something that surprised him, "You did what you could, Mellisandra. And thank you for coming back. If you hadn't, Entreri and Caplin might be dead right now. Or worse."

"How is Caplin?" she asked quietly.

"Since you broke the curse portion of this wretched disease, he seems to be resting better," Jarrol said. "But he's still not out of the woods." A cold hand reached up to touch Entreri's cheek. "And neither is Artemis. He's still burning up. How long before we'll know?"

"If he lives through the night, he's got a good chance of beating it," Mellisandra replied. "I'm going to check on Caplin myself."

There was the sound of a door opening and shutting again. Someone shifted in a chair beside the bed. Jarrol. Jarrol was sitting with him.

Entreri drifted back into sleep.

Some time later, there was a new set of voices. The cloth was dry now. His throat was dry. He needed water badly. He tried to move his hand, to turn his head at least. The motion set his stomach churning and made his head and neck throb in pain.

"Sir, do you need something?" came Cullon's voice. A hand removed the cloth from his forehead and he forced his eyes to open. The room was dim, but even the lamplight was too bright and made his head ache. He blinked and his eyelids felt dry and scratchy.

"Water," he tried to say.

A cup was pressed to his lips, and Cullon supported his head as he lifted it to drink. Only a few drops managed to get into him before exhaustion and pain caused him to drop his head again. The effort wearied him and he lay back in a haze of half-consciousness as the voices continued.

"I think it's creepy," Ballantin's voice was saying. "Waiting till midnight over Caplin's body like that. I'm glad the captain agreed to do it. I just don't think I could cut off a friend's head even if he had turned ghoulish."

So Caplin was dead of the fever. And at midnight, he'd awaken as a lacedon. If they didn't kill him on the spot, he'd kill them—his former crewmates. He'd kill them and eat them. Just like the lacedons had killed and eaten Emory.

Emory. He could see the boy standing there on the deck, asking yet another question after Entreri had told him no questions. The boy's curiosity was insatiable. But he was willing at least. And he always did as he was told.

Where was Emory, anyway? It was time for his lesson. Entreri said so to Cullon, but Cullon was busy talking to Ballantin about something and didn't hear him. So he repeated himself more loudly.

"What was that, sir?" Cullon finally acknowledged his presence in the room. But there was no need. Emory had come in on his own.

"I'm ready to work, sir," the boy said brightly.

"Good. We'll work on adding the main gauche to the longsword. Cullon and Ballantin here aren't ready for it, but you are," Entreri began. "Did you bring a dagger as I instructed?"

"Yes, sir," came the prompt reply and Emory brought out a beautifully crafted dagger. It looked to be of elven design.

"The main gauche is useful for parry and close work, takes up much less room than a shield and doesn't require as much space as a second longsword," Entreri began to instruct him.

"Sir, I can't understand what you're saying," Cullon interrupted. "Do you need anything?"

"I'm working with Emory," Entreri replied firmly.

"Did he say Emory?" Ballantin asked.

"Sir, Emory's dead," Cullon's voice came to him gently as if from a distance.

"I think he's delirious," Ballantin said softly.

"So do I," came a voice from the shadows. Jarlaxle stepped into the room, nudging Emory aside. "I believe you are delirious, Artemis."

"Go, Jarlaxle. I did not send your engraved invitation," Entreri snapped.

"This isn't your house, Artemis. I can come and go here as I please." Jarlaxle took a turn about the room, his huge purple hat taking up far too much space for Entreri's liking. "Hello, boy," he said to Emory. "Nice dagger."

"Thank you, sir," Emory replied politely.

"Don't 'sir' him, Emory. He's not worth it. It's his greed that got you killed," Entreri stated.

"My greed?" Jarlaxle asked innocently, one hand pressed against his heart. "Not greed, certainly Artemis. Opportunity, that's all. Merely opportunity."

"How many people are dead in Luskan to further your opportunities, Jarlaxle?" Entreri asked.

"About half," came the casual response.

"And it was worth that?" Entreri pressed.

"I suppose. Why do you care?"

Entreri had to pause at that and think. "I don't know," he finally stated, but both Jarlaxle and Emory were gone.

"Don't know what?" Jarrol asked. Cullon and Ballantin were gone.

How long ago had they left? Entreri wondered. When had Jarrol come in?

"I don't know why I care," Entreri answered him. Everything came at him from a great distance, as if he stood at the edge of a great cliff and spoke down to Jarrol far below, their voices echoing back and forth.

"Just rest, Artemis. Soon it will be morning," Jarrol replied.

Morning. Sunrise. Where was Dwahvel? Why wasn't she here? He missed her.

"She's at home, safe in Waterdeep, Artemis," came Jarrol's soft reply. He hadn't realized he'd spoken aloud.

He ran his fingertip against the smooth metal of his ring. He could use it. Right now. He could go back home to her. But if he died of this, he'd become a monster and she'd never know why. He could hurt her.

"Caplin?" Entreri asked.

There was a pause. Then Jarrol cleared his throat and said, "It's over now."

"If I die--" Entreri began.

"You aren't going to die, Artemis."

"Listen to me. If I die, take my ring back to Dwahvel. Tell her I'm sorry. She'll be angry, but try to explain to her why I couldn't leave." Entreri took as deep a breath as he could manage.

Then he continued, "Take the red sword, but never ever touch it barehanded. Throw it and the dagger and the pouch of stones in my vest pocket overboard. Do not keep any of it."

"Are you certain, Artemis?" Jarrol asked. "Those blades are extremely valuable."

"I would not wish them on anyone. Throw them overboard," Entreri reiterated firmly. "And tell Emory I am sorry I can't be his teacher any longer. I would have loved to train him. He's going to be so good one day, Manfred. He has a gift and a future ahead of him. Tell him I'm sorry I can't see him fulfill it."

There was another long pause. Then Jarrol said quietly, "I will."

Entreri lay there, exhausted with the effort of speaking.

Jarrol got up and stood before the cabin window, wiping at his eyes. "The sun will be up soon," he stated, his voice a little thick.

"I want to see it. Help me up." Entreri somehow found the energy to sit up and swing his legs over the side of the bunk. Jarrol went to his side and helped him stand. Pausing every few steps to rest, the two men made their way out on deck to the spot on the quarterdeck where Entreri usually watched the sunrise.

The morning was a bit on the cloudy side, giving the light something to work with as it began to brighten the sky. The underside of the clouds began to glow purple, then indigo, then rosy pink.

Entreri watched the sun brighten the darkness as it rose. The light gave him strength. It cleared his head, and he remembered.

"Emory is dead, isn't he?" he half asked the man sitting beside him.

"Yes, he is," came the quiet response.

"It's not right, Manfred. It's not right that he should die."

"No, it isn't."

A single tear rolled down Entreri's face. He wiped at it in surprise.

Beside him, Jarrol sat and watched the sun rise, tears rolling freely but quietly down his own face.

The anger had faded, leaving only the loss behind.

Emory was dead, and a piece of the future had died with him. There were things that would never happen now because Emory was dead.

He thought of all he wouldn't teach him, all Emory wouldn't learn, all the questions he'd never ask, all the days that would never come.

He thought of these things and realized he cared.

And for once in his life, Artemis Entreri knew what it meant to grieve. Another tear rolled down, then another.

He wept quietly for the boy who'd never got a chance to live. He wept for the man beside him who'd lost something more precious than his own life.

And he wept for himself. He wept for the boy he'd been that no one would have mourned. He wept because loss was real. He wept because he did care, even if he didn't know why.

The sun rose above them, its light shining down on the ship in the water, on its battered crew, on its tattered sails. The sun washed over them with promise, a promise Entreri had to accept, even if he didn't understand.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

A few days later, they sailed into Luskan harbor, appalled by the sight that met their eyes. Smoke hung over the city from distant fires. The usually busy, crowded docks were empty of all but a few gaunt-eyed men who shuffled back and forth slowly.

The call went out that the fleet was coming in, but that call soon went quiet as Captain Jarrol informed those meeting them that they were all that remained of the fleet. The city reeled from the shock. No caravan. No fleet.

All Artemis Entreri wanted to do was provision the ship and set out again. The misery and hopelessness that hung over Luskan was worse than facing lacedons again. At least he knew how to dispel lacedons. There was no dispelling the gloom of Luskan.

They walked out onto the docks as the dock crew began unloading the precious grain they'd managed to deliver intact. One load wouldn't last a week in the face of this kind of starvation. Personally, Entreri didn't think it would last the night. One of the city's many crime syndicates would have it stolen and on the black market by daybreak. Not a kernel would end up in the hands of the ones who needed it most.

Captain Deudermont sent his greetings, but was too deeply embroiled with the politics of the city to meet them in person. His ship, Sea Sprite, lay at anchor just down the quay and her crew stood on her decks with an air of uneasy readiness and watched as the Bonfire's crew passed down the walkway to the nearest tavern.

Entering, the few remaining crewmen, including Mellisandra, were treated to a half-hearted, weary cheer. Then a barmaid came up to them with half-portions of ale. "Sorry it ain't full glasses, but we're on strict ration. Getting any at all is a real treat and compliment to you," she explained with a sigh.

The tavern's keeper came up then with a large covered tray. "We've got a meal for you at least, compliments of Ship Suljack. We thank you for all you suffered to get here and wish we had better to offer," he said. Then he pulled the lid off the tray to reveal an odd, dark looking meat and large dish of strange spotted mushrooms.

Entreri rose from his seat, went out the front door, and promptly vomited in the gutter. He knew that food. He'd been forced to eat rothe and underdark mushrooms for far too long as a near-captive in Menzoberranzan.

A layer of snow still coated the top of a nearby rain barrel and he grabbed a handful, scrubbing his face with the cold granules until his skin felt clean again.

Jarlaxle.

There was no explanation for it but Jarlaxle and Bregan D'aerthe.

Well, he thought to himself, at least Jarlaxle was feeding them something.

But he would not eat it.

They spent the next two days aboard ship. No one had the desire to walk the depressing streets of Luskan. There was a continual feeling of apprehension and unrest everywhere they went. Not even Memnon had been this way, Entreri decided. In truth, it felt more like Mezoberranzan than any other place he'd been.

However, the fear, the paranoia, the hopelessness that pervaded everything should have felt more familiar to him than it did. He'd spent almost his entire life in places that ran off this very kind of energy—the backstreets of Calimport, the wilderness of Vaasa, the underworld of nearly every city in Faerun.

It should have felt comfortable and understandable.

But it didn't. It felt wrong and oppressive. Had he changed so much?

He twisted the gold band on his finger and seriously considered going home. He'd gotten Captain Jarrol and the Bonfire to Luskan. He'd seen the cargo delivered safely. He'd nearly died in the defense of the ship. Surely that was enough.

Then he thought of Emory. He hadn't protected all of them. And he couldn't leave Jarrol with so few to get the ship home again. He let go of the ring and looked up.

Even the sun refused to shine over Luskan. Heavy clouds blanketed the sky, dropping cold rain and the occasional snowflake. They all longed to go south where the weather was warmer and the sun shone clearer.

But on the day they'd planned to depart, all hell had broken loose. Entreri and Jarrol stood on the deck of the Bonfire, interviewing the large numbers of crewmen that had applied for the replacement positions on board. It seemed that all of Luskan was willing to work passage for free if it meant getting to leave the city and go to Waterdeep.

Then the cry had gone up, "Lacedons! Lacedons in the harbor!"

But as Entreri and crew had gone to alert, Entreri already calling on the power of the shadow stones to protect Bonfire, it became apparent that the lacedons were targeting only Captain Deudermont's ship, Sea Sprite.

Then Sea Sprite began to list heavily and smoke as some sort of wizardly duel took place in the hold. Entreri followed through with his banishment spell on the lacedons, but many had already fled in the confusion on board.

It was only later that they'd discovered that Robillard, the Sea Sprite wizard, had defeated Arklem Geeth, destroying the lich that had sunk the Waterdeep flotilla. Then word had come that Captain Deudermont was also dead and the glorious task of freeing the city of Luskan from the Hosttower was over.

The Hosttower lay in ruins, its lich defeated, but so lay the city of Luskan. And the heroes of Waterdeep, Lord Brambleberry and Captain Deudermont, had also lost their lives in the process.

"Who is the victor in this?" Captain Jarrol asked Entreri as they stood at the rail and looked over the wreck of the Sea Sprite.

"No one. No one has won but the carrion birds who pick up the pieces," Entreri answered. And somewhere out there a giant diatryma busily pecked out its portion of the spoils, he thought wryly.

Their departure delayed a bit longer in the ensuing chaos of the moment, Entreri ventured out into the streets one last time. He wasn't sure why, but something drew him out there to see for himself first hand what madness Jarlaxle had wrought.

True, he decided as he passed through the streets, Jarlaxle couldn't have been responsible for all of it. He just wasn't the type to put forth that much effort.

However, he was the type to exploit the efforts of others for his benefit. And in his short time in Luskan, Entreri had already decided who had the most to gain from the change of power—the four surviving ship captains who ran the city.

Find those men, and he would find Jarlaxle.

Then he decided he was not looking for him. Entreri turned around and headed back to the harbor. He was going home.

Watching him approach was a dark elf and his shorter companion, who stood steely-eyed, mace in hand.

"Come on, Drizzt," the halfling pleaded. "It's Artemis Entreri. We'll never get a better chance to take him out."

"No, there's no reason for it," Drizzt responded quietly. He wanted as little to do with Artemis Entreri as possible. He hated the sight of him but had no current quarrel with him either.

"He cut off my finger, Drizzt," Regis complained. "That's reason enough for me."

"And you healed nicely," Drizzt replied. "Let bygones be bygones."

They stood in the shadows and watched at a distance as Entreri turned around and headed back in the direction of the merchant ship he'd arrived on. Perhaps the assassin was not seeking to rejoin the drow mercenary's group after all. Drizzt's last encounter with Jarlaxle and the frightening dwarf Athrogate had been quite enough for him. He simply wanted out of Luskan.

But in good conscience, since learning of the assassin's arrival on the only flotilla ship to reach Waterdeep, he could not leave without having some idea that Artemis Entreri did not seek to do great harm while he was there. Luskan was reeling bad enough from all that had happened to it without adding Entreri's considerable power for devastation to the mix.

Just as he made up his mind to confront him, he saw Entreri stop suddenly and hold out his left hand as if examining it, an odd expression crossing his face. Then Drizzt noticed a wide gold band on his third finger. A band that matched the one Catti-brie had given him. A wedding band?

A shimmer in the air ahead of the assassin told of a dimensional gate opening, and a halfling woman stepped through, a silver dagger in her grip. She blinked once, as if orienting herself, then with a cry threw herself at Entreri.

At first Drizzt thought he was watching an assassination in progress, then when Entreri dropped to his knee to embrace the woman passionately, he realized it was a reunion. The halfling's dagger dropped to the street with a ring of metal as she wound her arms around Entreri's neck and her fingers into his hair.

"Dwahvel? Dwahvel Tiggerwillies? And Artemis Entreri?" Regis was saying in disbelief. "I think I am going to be sick. Dwahvel Tiggerwillies is far too good for that evil wretch. What on earth does she see in him?"

Sure enough, Drizzt could see that this was a couple in love. He could see the relief and joy on Entreri's face as he kissed the woman again and again, caressing her face in his hands and holding her tenderly.

This was a side of Entreri he never thought he'd see. Watching them together, the love so evident, the concern, the joy at their reunion, made him miss Catti-brie.

Was Catti happy adventuring without him? Had the road been the pleasure and adventure they both thought it would be? When they were reunited, would she kiss her husband with that kind of joy and abandonment? Would he hold his wife with the same look of peace in her embrace?

Leaving the two on the street, Drizzt took Regis firmly by the shoulder and turned him towards home. He never thought to envy Artemis Entreri of anything, but right that moment he did.

From a spot just down the street, another dark elf watched Drizzt and Regis walk away with great interest.

However, the two lovers had no idea they were being observed at all.

"What are you doing here?" Artemis was asking Dwahvel over and over between kisses and caresses.

She was so happy to see him alive and in Luskan and not at the bottom of the ocean that she couldn't find words to speak. All she could do was hold him and kiss him in return.

At last, he calmed enough to just hold her quietly against him, oblivious to the fact that they stood in the open on a public street.

"The news came that the fleet had been destroyed," Dwahvel began, but her voice began to break as she spoke and she had to continue through her tears. "Then they said that one ship had made it through. I knew it was you. I knew if anyone made it through it was you."

She held him close and let all her worries and fears over the past months pour out onto his shoulder as he held her tightly and stroked her back.

After a moment she wiped her eyes and managed to continue, "I was so scared, Artemis. I was so afraid that I'd step through that gate and find you on the bottom of the ocean."

"And then you would have been on the bottom of the ocean," he chastised her as he stood and took her hand to walk her back to the ship.

"But I'd have been with you," she said. "I couldn't go another minute not knowing." As they walked together, she leaned her head against his arm as he held her hand tightly, her fingers intertwined in his.

"Ah, the Entreris," came a voice from the darkness of a doorway beside them. "What brings you to the fair city of Luskan?"

Entreri turned to face him, weariness evident in his movements. "I don't really have any interest in bantering with you, Jarlaxle," he stated.

"Oh, but I have great interest in bantering with you, Artemis," Jarlaxle stated, stepping forward from a doorway. "And I think you have come in search of me as well. Either that, or you were seeking another encounter with Drizzt Do'Urden, who just lately wandered off--" Jarlaxle pointed roughly behind him "--somewhere that direction."

Entreri's weariness burned off him in a sudden rush of anger toward the manipulative, lying, self-serving elf.

"Yes, I had indeed heard that he was alive after all, Jarlaxle," Entreri snapped. "Tell me, did you set that whole business up just as entertainment for yourself? How many good laughs did you and Kimmuriel have over the poor deluded human and his pathetic obsession?"

Jarlaxle looked stunned and hurt, but Entreri knew him too well to believe it for a moment. "No, Artemis. I did that for your own good, not for my entertainment," the elf explained.

"And making me King Artemis I of Vaasa was also for my own good?" Entreri pressed on in his anger. "How about setting me up with Calihye? You knew what she was planning. Was it for my own good that you let her go through with it? Just to watch me squirm?"

Artemis had walked even closer to Jarlaxle, his hand still tightly clenching Dwahvel's but holding her away as well. "And how about Idalia's Flute, Jarlaxle? Did you pass that little item along to me for my own good or just to watch me fall apart?" he asked coldly.

Jarlaxle just blinked at him, apparently taken aback by the depths of his friend's anger. "No, Artemis. I wanted to help you. I wanted you to discover yourself," he stated firmly.

Artemis glared at him, then took a deep breath.

"Perhaps you are the one in need of self-discovery, Jarlaxle," Artemis replied, his voice calmer now. "Perhaps the next time you wish to uncover a person's inner motivations, you should concentrate on your own. You should ask yourself what drives you. You should consider the size of the emptiness in your own heart that you're trying to fill."

Dwahvel watched as Artemis stood right in front of the drow mercenary and put his hand on Jarlaxle's chest. "Half the people of Luskan have died trying to fill that void inside you. People who never did you any harm. Children who are never going to get the chance to discover themselves because their future is gone, wiped out by your need for power and profit," he continued sadly. "There's a huge hole in there, Jarlaxle. Be careful all of Faerun doesn't have to die to fill it."

Then Artemis dropped his hand back to his side and his voice grew cold again as he stated, "I don't want to be your enemy. But if you set your sights on Waterdeep, I will fight you. I will fight you to the end before I'll let you do there what you've done here."

For once, Jarlaxle was silent as Artemis turned to walk away, pulling Dwahvel even closer as he did so. They walked together in silence for several moments. Then he stated in a flat voice, "Emory's dead. Half the crew is dead. Half the city is dead. And all for profit. Profit and opportunity."

He stopped in the street and looked up at the sun, blinking in the light for a long moment. Then he looked down at her again and dropped his arm across her shoulder, catching ringlets of her hair in his fingers. She put her arm around his waist, becoming aware for the first time that he wasn't wearing a sword at all.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Epilogue

He was home.

Drizzt Do'Urden walked through the door of his bedroom in Mithril Hall, looking for Catt-brie. The long trip home had given him much to consider.

He'd looked to the road as a chance to get away from all this, to find adventure and excitement in the wider world.

And what had he found?

He'd found an old friend whose highest goal was to make himself fit to stay home with his people. Wulfgar had defied the worst of Icewind Dale on his own so that he might return to the Tribe of the Elk and find permanency there.

He'd found an old enemy and had walked away from a renewal of their conflict. How many times over the years had he looked into the cold, heartless eyes of Artemis Entreri? How many weeks had he spent fighting his way out of the Underdark at his side, aware that if Entreri thought for a moment he could escape on his own, his merciless blade would find Drizzt's heart instead of the monsters that faced them?

And he remembered the last time he looked directly into those dark, cold eyes. He recalled the look in them as Entreri had attacked him in the crystal tower, knowing the attack was suicidal, knowing that Drizzt was open to cut him down. Drizzt had looked into his eyes then and seen nothing but hopelessness.

Then to see an Artemis Entreri at peace, joyful in his wife's passionate embrace. To see him so—happy. It boggled the mind to think of Artemis Entreri happy.

But Drizzt's time in Luskan had been anything but happy.

His road had been full of disappointment and sorrow. Longsaddle was in turmoil. Luskan was destroyed.

Deudermont was gone.

He did not look forward to telling Catti-brie, but he wanted to see her so badly. He'd missed her. He needed her. He needed peace and permanence for himself.

A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts. Regis poked his head in and said, "Bruenor just told me that Catti-brie came two days ago and left again on some mission with Alustriel. She'd hoped to catch you before she left."

Perhaps his friend saw the disappointment on his face. At any rate, Regis added, "I'm sorry, Drizzt. She'll be home soon."

Drizzt sighed and looked around the empty room. Then he walked forward resolutely and gave his friend a pat on the shoulder. "I'm sure she will," he said firmly. "And we'll be waiting for her."

He was home.

Jarlaxle sat in his spacious office in Bregan D'aerthe's headquarters in Menzoberranzan and considered the success of their latest venture. Treasures had already begun to flow from Mirabar and Silverymoon into Luskan and into the hands of Bregan D'aerthe's operatives there.

He planned to send Lady Calihye as an emissary to Kensidan, provided she continued to do well. Kimmuriel was a good lieutenant, his men were good soldiers, but together they'd managed to nearly ruin her for service to the group.

Sometimes he wondered if perhaps Artemis would make an effort to rescue her, knowing that she was there, but he soon dismissed that as a hopelessly romantic notion on his part.

Artemis Entreri had moved on. He'd moved past Calihye, he'd certainly moved past Bregan D'aerthe, and though it hurt Jarlaxle to say so, he'd moved past him as well.

He looked up at a shelf above his desk where sat his most prized possessions. Idalia's Flute. The scrimshaw of Drizzt and Gwenhwyfar he'd taken from the halfling Regis. A pair of drow longswords, their runes etched and damaged almost to illegibility by acid.

He looked at the flute and remembered Artemis's words. The hole inside him was so vast. He knew it. It was vast beyond description, carved out over centuries by drow politics, by cruelty, by love, and by loss.

He looked at the swords and remembered their owner, Zaknafein Do'Urden. It had taken a great deal of effort to retrieve those swords from the Acid Aerie. The hole inside him had grown so much larger when he'd learned of his death at Matron Malice's hand—whose very hand he'd delivered him into so many centuries ago.

But the horror of his resurrection through Zin-carla and his mission to kill his son had been even worse than his death. And Jarlaxle knew he was directly responsible for it all. The hole had grown.

He recalled their early association with one another when Jarlaxle had been Secondboy and weaponsmaster of House Baenre and Zaknafein barely out of Melee Magthere as a minor son of House Hun'ett.

He'd tried then to bring Zak into his fold, to convince his mother to trade for this insignificant second son of a second daughter. He'd tried to convince her that he would be great, that his martial prowess ran in his blood and that he belonged at Jarlaxle's side.

But Yvonnel Baenre would not be moved. Jarlaxle eventually recruited the young drow to the newly founded underground force he called Bregan D'aerthe, then a force of comprised of both housed and houseless males who operated in secret, creating a network within and without the houses, meeting as they could.

Jarlaxle had taken time with the young man to instruct him further in swordplay, teaching him everything he knew about fighting, about strength and independence, even in the face of the oppression of the Matron Mothers. And as Zaknafein's skills and personality had blossomed under Jarlaxle's instruction, he'd been so proud.

But something had kept him from telling the young man the truth, and over the decades, the biological facts of their relationship had become less important than the sincere friendship they'd developed. Together, they'd created a powerful force in Bregan D'aerthe. Too powerful.

When the group's activities grew to the point that Yvonnel could ignore them no longer, she'd called Jarlaxle to account and had given him a choice.

She would bring his protege into House Baenre as his assistant if he would disband his little side project. Otherwise, she'd already laid plans for Zaknafein's selection by the Matron Mother of House D'aemon N'a'shezbaernon as its new patron and weaponsmaster.

It was a win for Yvonnel Baenre no matter which way he chose.

If he chose his son, the increasingly embarrassing activities of Bregan D'aerthe and Jarlaxle's rebellion would end and her son would find his place again, this time with his affection for Zaknafein as leverage to be used against him.

If he chose Bregan D'aerthe, House Hun'ett would be furious at being forced to give up such a talented warrior to an inferior house, and the bad blood between the Houses would last for centuries, much to the delight of Lolth and her most favored Matron Mother, Yvonnel Baenre.

The loss of her beloved son would also devastate Zaknafein's mother Ta'Riel, who doted on him in a manner unseemly in a female and allowed him far too much rein. Yvonnel hated her for her arrogance. Who was she, a second daughter of an inferior house, to think she had the right to the Secondboy of the First House of Menzoberranzan? And to do so in secret? Without sanction by either house?

When Jarlaxle thought of Ta'Riel, it was with wistfulness. He'd been so very, very young. She'd been his first during the ceremony of graduation from Melee Magthere. Certainly, the erotic power of the night had been overwhelming, but she'd sought him out afterwards as well.

She'd treated him kindly during their encounters. He'd looked forward to them. They ended when she became pregnant with his child, but he liked to think that she'd been unusually lenient with Zaknafein because of him, because Ta'Riel had truly cared about him during their brief, passionate relationship.

The choice between the son of his youth and the organization he'd put his entire heart into had not been an easy one. He'd known that Zak would be extremely unhappy in the role of patron, especially given the cruelties Malice Do'Urden had already become famous for. To sell him out that way, to trade Zak's relative freedom for the continued existence of Bregan D'aerthe had not been without pain for Jarlaxle.

But in the end, he'd chosen profit and opportunity over his son, and Zak had not spoken to him again. The Matron Mother of House Hun'ett had lost favor with Lolth, and her eldest daughter Si'Nafay had been forced to kill her mother and her younger sister Ta'Riel to secure both her position and the favor of Lolth again.

With Ta'Riel's death, the hole inside him had grown though it had been years since they'd even spoken, much less loved. Jarlaxle had thrown himself into the growth of Bregan D'aerthe, tirelessly seeking the power and treasures and secrets that would make it invaluable and invulnerable.

Soon, Bregan D'aerthe had grown to the point that Jarlaxle had been able to break with his mother and leave House Baenre forever, independent of the Matron Mothers. He'd lost Zaknafein, his son and his trusted friend, but gained his freedom and the freedom of Bregan D'aerthe.

But had it been worth the price he paid?

Jarlaxle's eyes turned to the scrimshaw likeness of Drizzt Do'Urden, Zaknafein's only son. When Drizzt came of age, Jarlaxle had intended to recruit him to his side—the son for the father, the grandson for the son. But Drizzt had gone to the surface, lost to him except for the occasional meeting as in Luskan.

He was not Drizzt's enemy. Never his enemy.

But he could not be his friend either. Too much time and too much distance stood between them.

That didn't stop Jarlaxle from taking an interest in him, from protecting him whenever possible. In Drizzt, Jarlaxle could see all that he'd once hoped to be, all that he'd wanted his son to be. But Drizzt was lost to him, just as his father had been.

Then he considered Idalia's Flute and Artemis Entreri.

He'd discovered Artemis while looking for Drizzt. It was hard to miss him, as the human seemed hell-bent on killing his grandson. Looking at Artemis was like looking at a reversed reflection of the two boys he'd lost. So full of talent, so full of determination. But all without direction.

Zaknafein had found himself at last, as had Drizzt—and without Jarlaxle's guidance and help. In Artemis he'd seen another chance. A chance to be the mentor and the guide that he should have been to Zaknafein and Drizzt.

But mentorship had never been Jarlaxle's strong suit, and despite his efforts to bring the young assassin out of the pointlessness of competition with Drizzt and into the bright world of profit with Bregan D'aerthe, Artemis's past had colored his present too strongly for him to ever enjoy his life.

And if there was one thing Jarlaxle wanted to pass down to someone it was the capacity to enjoy life. Zaknafein had been miserable until death in House Daermon N'a'shezbaernon. Drizzt, as far as Jarlaxle could tell, still wandered the surface almost as rootlessly as when he first stepped out into the sunshine.

Jarlaxle had been convinced that once Artemis put his demons to rest, he would be free to enjoy life, to enjoy the acquisition of new treasures, to enjoy the creation of new networks of profit and opportunity.

As he looked up at Idalia's Flute on the shelf, he knew he'd been wrong. Artemis had also found himself apart from Jarlaxle's guidance.

And watching him in the pretty halfling's arms, he had believe that perhaps Artemis was happy as well. Of all of them, perhaps Artemis had found something Zaknafein and Drizzt had not discovered.

But as he recalled Artemis's words of warning to him about staying out of Waterdeep, he knew that his friend also stood on the other side of the gulf that separated Jarlaxle from his progeny. A gulf that longed to be filled with acquisition, and treasure, and secrets, and power, and lives.

Jarlaxle reached up to Idalia's Flute and for a split second considered playing it himself.

Then his hand moved away again. He didn't need the flute to tell him his losses, his failures. Three of them lay on his shelf in plain view.

He was home.

Manfred Jarrol opened the front door of his house and walked inside. He could hear the sounds of the little girls in the parlor, talking and arguing as usual.

He let them be and went in search of his wife. She sat at her desk in their office, working on some correspondence. Elissa looked up at his entrance, her face breaking into a joyful smile as she ran to him.

"You're home!" she cried, throwing her arms around him.

He held her a long moment, delaying the inevitable. He'd sent word that the ship had made it through, but had not told her any more than that. It didn't seem right for a stranger to bear the news.

He held her and breathed in the scent of her hair, felt the warm softness of her dress beneath his fingers, listened to the sound of her voice as she spoke to him words of welcome.

Then she pulled away and asked curiously, "Where's Emory?"

He was home.

Artemis Entreri walked up the stairs of his house to his bedroom and dropped his red sword and jeweled dagger into the trunk at the foot of his bed. He hoped he never had to put them on again. The sight of them sickened him, the weight of them at his waist dragged at him.

His other sword had gone overboard with the sailor he'd tossed it to. That meant a trip to the armorer's for the morrow. His other dagger hung at his belt. It didn't speak to him or possess any power beyond a sharpness of blade and niceness of balance in his hand, and that was more than sufficient for him.

He unbuckled the leather vest that had shielded him for so long, its many enchantments adding layers of protection far beyond its looks. He shrugged himself free of it and tossed it atop the trunk.

He had no need of its protection.

He was home.

Then he walked into the bathing room where the large tub stood and, using the shadow stones and a trick he'd learned from his casting lessons with Mellisandra, filled it with hot bubbling water. Then without another thought, he stripped and sank into the hot water to his chin, letting the last months wash out of him.

He stayed in there a long time, not thinking, not feeling, not remembering, just being home. Then he finally crawled out, his skin pink from the heat, dried and dressed, and went downstairs.

Somehow, Dwahvel had managed to put food on the table. In a house that had been empty for months, she'd somehow found and prepared an actual meal. He was exhausted and starved but did not stop to eat. Instead he looked around the room for her, but she was nowhere to be seen.

"Where did you go?" he called but got no answer.

He wandered the house looking for her. She was not inside. Then he walked into the little garden out back. She sat on the wooden bench in the arbor. Spring had come fully during their absence and the vines had covered it completely, their large blossoms scenting the air with a delicate perfume.

"What are you doing?" he asked her as he walked over to sit beside her.

"Nothing," she replied as she looked up at him. "I just came out to sit for a minute."

He put his arm around her and she snuggled against him. The curls of her hair wrapped around his fingers as he played with them. After a long moment, she sighed sadly, and he asked, "What is it? What's bothering you?"

She looked up at him, her eyes misty and answered, "I was just thinking about poor Elissa Jarrol. Manfred is probably telling her right now about Emory. I can't imagine how awful that must be."

Entreri sat up a little straighter. In all honesty it hadn't crossed his mind that his friend was at that very moment delivering such bad news. They'd had weeks to grieve together on the long return journey, and he'd been so glad to be at home in his own house that it hadn't even crossed his mind that Emory's mother did not know her son wasn't coming home.

He remembered Jarrol asking him that very question—what do I tell his mother. Entreri didn't know what to tell him then and still did not know.

As he sat there remembering the horrible way Emory died, he knew she would ask who was responsible. Who was she to hate for killing her son.

It was then that he came to a dark realization. "I'm responsible, Dwahvel," he stated. "It's my fault he's dead."

"How, Artemis?" she chided him. "There was nothing more you could do. You did your best to help him."

Entreri took her hand for strength to help him say the words. "When it happened, I blamed myself for not being fast enough, for not using the stones soon enough. But that's not why it's my fault." He looked out across the grass which shimmered a little in the bright sunlight.

"It's my fault because I made it possible. I have spent my whole life helping that kind of evil, bringing it information and magic to make it stronger, killing those that stood in its way," he stated.

"Artemis, when did you ever do a job for the Hosttower in Luskan?" Dwahvel asked, disturbed by his line of thought.

"I didn't have to. I served the pashas. I served Bregan D'aerthe. I served the whole system of evil that made the Hosttower and the ship captains powerful. At some point in my career, I am sure I did something that directly benefited Arklem Geeth and helped him gain the power he needed to call up the lacedons that killed Emory and the rest of the crew," Artemis declared firmly. "I am responsible. And not just for Emory. Who knows how many others?"

A rush of images flashed through him. He remembered the flesh markets of Calimport—places he'd avoided if at all possible, but sometimes had been forced to visit for business. He could see the terrified faces of children lined up for sale.

He knew what lay ahead for many of them. He'd been one of them once. How many of those children were up on the block because he'd killed the man who'd been providing for them? Protecting them?

How many innocents had become prey for the wererats as they scavenged the streets at night searching for food because he'd diverted supplies meant for them into the black market?

How many were taken by wizards who needed subjects for experimentation using new artifacts he'd stolen for them?

How many died of disease and neglect because their homes and their lives had been destroyed by a gang he'd put into power?

How many ruined lives could be directly laid at his feet because of his particular service to evil? How many deaths?

He stood up and walked out of the shade of the arbor and into the open. He looked up at the sun shining so brightly overhead and blinked in its light. He couldn't go back. He couldn't undo the damage he'd caused. He could only move forward.

He turned back to Dwahvel, the sunlight shining behind his dark hair like a halo, casting his face into shadow.

"I won't serve evil again," he declared to her, his voice hard and angry. "I will not be its tool any longer. And when it comes to Waterdeep, I will fight against it to the death. If that makes me some kind of paladin, then so be it. But I am the power to choose, Dwahvel. And I will not choose to perpetuate death and disaster any longer."

Dwahvel looked at him. The light of the sun practically glowed around him in its intensity, but even in the light, there was darkness. In his anger, he'd subconsciously called on the power of the ever-present shadow stones, deepening the gloom beneath the trees, sharpening the edge of his own shadow against the grass.

It was as if light and dark were joined in him—the fierceness and clarity of the light with the mystery and danger of the darkness.

She shivered a little and considered the concept of Artemis Entreri as paladin.

He would be as fierce and terrible as the blade of a sword, as direct and unrelenting as the light of the sun, and as unstoppable and unfathomable as the darkness of shadow. He would be both terrifying and beautiful to behold.

And this was only the beginning, she thought. At his age, any other human would be half-way through with life, but for Artemis Entreri this was only the beginning. All he'd been and done to this point was a stepping stone to what he would be in a hundred years, in two hundred, three hundred, four.

What would he become as a swordsman over those hundreds of years of youth and power? What would he become as a sorcerer with all of the Shadow Weave at his disposal?

And Dwahvel had the privilege of being there at the start of the incredible being that was and would be Artemis Entreri. She looked at him in the bright sunlight, the black shadow, and was humbled.

Out of everyone in the world who could stand by his side, who could listen to him and guide him--who could love him--the gods had placed her in his path. She was the one he turned to in the night, the one he sought for comfort and peace, the one he treated with tenderness and care. She was the one he loved.

He saw the look on her face as she struggled with some unreadable emotion, and he came back to kneel before her, all his fierce anger pushed aside in concern as she gazed at him. "Tell me," he demanded nervously. "Tell me what you're thinking."

How could she? How could she put into words what she felt for him? What she saw ahead of him?

Instead of speaking, she traced his face with her fingertips. She pushed back his hair, still damp from his bath but beginning to dry in the warmth of the sun. She kissed him once, gently, glad to be the one who could. Then she put her arms around him and rested her cheek against his, enjoying the feel of him, the warmth of him as his arms encircled her in a protective embrace.

Dwahvel held her Artemis close--all he had been, all he was, and all he would be.

And she was not about to let go.

THE END

_AN: There you go!!! All done!!!! The trilogy is in the can. Sigh. _

_Big big big old thanks to all who've been reading and reviewing. Your encouragement has made all the difference. Like I told RonCN, reviews and responses are the coin with which we pay ourselves since fanfiction doesn't pay—see the disclaimer if you don't believe me!!! _

_So, if you're reading and thinking of not reviewing because A) it's been out a long time, or B) it's already completed, or C) you're just feeling too lazy to log in, please reconsider and review. Even if you hated it, review. Hey, especially if you hated it, please review so I'll know what not to do next time! _

_Now, to fresh fields and pastures new. Can't swear I won't be back to FR though. I've got all kinds of AE theories to play with and have hinted at what happened to Calihye (spits on ground 'cause I hate her for breaking our boy's heart that way) during her "recruitment" by Kimmuriel and the boys of Bregan D'aerthe, but haven't actually said. If I do, it'll be called Mindgames b/c Mindf**k is just too crude for posting, though a far more accurate description of the events. _

_And I will probably be posting some original FR-esque fiction on as Arcole there too. Would love input as I work on something for actual publication. _

_Again, thanks for reading!!!! I love you all!!!!_


	12. Publication!

Sorry to do this as an update to a finished work and maybe won't fuss too much about doing it, but I really wanted to get the word out to everybody who's subscribed to my big stuff in the past.

Over the years several of you have asked if I have anything in print other than Fanfiction and the answer is SOON!

My fantasy novel The Blacksmith's Daughter is set for release on October 21 at Musa Publishing! You will be able to download it as an ebook on October 21, 2011, at their website at musapublishing dot com or on Amazon and other such sites!

I would love it if you would take a moment to friend request me-as Arley Cole of course-on Facebook so I can create some buzz for the release. Plus I will provide updates and links to the book there and on my blog at www dot arleycole dot blogspot dot com.

I can't thank you enough for reading my Fanfiction. Writing for you all made it possible to write The Blacksmith's Daughter. I would not be here without you!

Sincerely,

Arcole

Arley Cole (gotta keep the pen names as close as possible!)


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